


Sticks and Stones, Darling

by fightthefry



Series: Harry Potter Stories [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Eventual Romance, Grey! Tom, Hermione's kind of ambiguous, I know she kind of seems like she changes a bit, Multi, She gets better too, She's just trying to help, Slowburn (kinda), Tom's dislikeable at the beginning, but he gets better I promise
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-02
Updated: 2019-11-05
Packaged: 2019-11-08 00:32:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 32,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17971040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fightthefry/pseuds/fightthefry
Summary: Her curly hair flailed as she cried, her Dark Lord flung through the veil, blindsided by hatred and greed. His eyes; wide, as he watched the blurred white disappear in utter mortality. No longer inimitable, Lord Voldemort died as he passed through the veil.But Tom Riddle was very much alive.





	1. Chapter 1

Bellatrix Lestrange dropped to her knees in an execrable defeat, her ghosted wails painted on the air thick and mordant; her despair at his downfall suffocating and pitiful.

But other than that, no-one moved, no noise was sounded, or attempt made to rectify the fact; Lord Voldemort had fallen through the veil. Lord Voldemort was gone.

"My God," Fudge exclaimed, his jaw open despite the hordes of Death Eaters frozen in front of him; he didn't move. Reporters stood with their cameras lopsided and their hats skewed on their heads, their eyes dish plates. Quills floated above their notepads in the air and portrayed a humane emotion of shock and confusion, their feathers turning amongst themselves for someone to say something, something for them to record. The green light reflected off the shined walls of the Ministry room had dulled, and a boorish grey had taken its place, and in turn their faces to appear ashen and gaunt. Even Bellatrix's sobbing had ceased, pathetic sniffs of submission escaping her wettened face as she heaved into her cloak, the luscious brocaded fabric turned matted and grey with the salt from her tears.

"Harry," a voice whispered from behind him, but he didn't move. He only felt her hand slide into his, and a hand placed on the opposite shoulder as three teenagers stood in stunned silence, the implications of the events weighing on them impossibly and the reality sinking in like a branding mark. Like a scar.

Hermione's quiet tears trickled down her face, blank as it was, and her mahogany eyes blinked rapidly. Ron was less subtle, as usual, his mouth twitching and gaping like a fish gasping for air. His freckles mixed into his skin - unusually pale, with only a hint of red - giving the appearance of an embalmed corpse.

Harry was vaguely aware of a trickle of blood escaping down his chin, and the crack that ran across the smeared lenses of his glasses, but he didn't care.

It was finally over. Voldemort was gone. They'd won.

"Harry," Hermione repeated, her voice scarily level, but high and lofty. She sounded more like Luna than Hermione, but with Luna unconscious in the corner and Neville doting next to her, perhaps unaware of the current situation, he was certain that it was Hermione. Although, even he was nearly fooled.

"He's gone," she observed, and Harry looked around, following her gaze. Death Eaters were regaining their senses and apparating away, with stunned and clumsy Ministry men lumbering after them with their legs stiff and their faces slack. The Minister, useless as he was, stood still in the same place, ignoring the influx of questions spat at him from all angles by hungry and antic reporters.

Some were making their way towards Harry, held back only by the outstretched arms of Sirius Black, his face beaded with sweat and hair tangled with stress.

No-one was smiling, though. There was no big hurray, like Harry had always thought. However, he wasn't even sure that was the truth. The war was over, in essence, but far were they free of the battles that were to come. But Harry... Harry was free. His scar throbbed in memory, nostalgia almost, but he took solace and plenty of joy in knowing that it would never wake him again, never blind him in agony.

"Oh Harry!" Hermione sobbed, her arms wrapping around his shoulders as she buried her face in the crook of his neck, tears streaming down his collarbone and spreading like branches across his ripped and bloodied shirt. Her hair covered his eyes as it bushed out, but he could scarcely care.

Harry let a smile grow on his face as he felt Ron's arm awkwardly brush past Harry, making its way to Hermione's shoulder. Some things never changed.

"Hey Potter!" Ginny yelled excitedly, her voice mimicking every time she had beaten him in the summer quidditch sessions at the Burrow. The happy memory made him jolt, and he felt the tears roll down his face as he grappled his friends into his arms - not quite reaching though - and laughed with them, as children.

Harry didn't think he'd ever truly been a child before.

"Minister!" A gruff voice called from the veil, catching the attention of many reporters and many Order members, who rushed over to the outburst in a flurry.

"What the? -"

Harry furrowed his brow and let his friend’s arms drop from him as he made his way warily over to the crowd of people, held back by the looming figure of Albus Dumbledore, his face contorted into stern finality.

"It's a kid," Someone said, immediately followed by a wave of whispers and chips amongst the onlookers.

"Get back!" The deep and commanding of voice of Dumbledore sounded, the waves of sound rebounding off the walls and knocking them green again, pushing the reporters back as they scurried away in craven defeat.

Instinctively, Harry also moved back, the familiar sound of a raised voice causing childlike, lachrymose fear to resurface abruptly.

A swan of men in dark capes, eerily like that of the enemy, spun in, surrounding Dumbledore until only the tip of his effulgent cap was visible.

Harry shook his head slightly, swallowing his nerves and pushing them down, Gryffindor courage taking over.

“Hey!” He yelled, which may not have been the most articulate of sentences, but it certainly got some attention.

Remus Lupin turned away from the crowd, away from Dumbledore, and walked over to Harry with a calm distress present on his scarred face.

“What’s going on?” Harry demanded, vaguely aware of his friends regrouped at his sides.

Remus sighed, his eyes large and full of something, something that Harry couldn’t decipher; was it pity? Or fear?

He fiddled with the hem of his robes, ragged as they were, in a nervous state that Harry hadn’t seen him in since the night they found Sirius.

“Harry, it’s not my place to say,” Remus said, his hands finding his hair as he fiddled with it, his face partially covered by the mass of fabric that was his sleeve, “Dumbledore and the Ministry are conferring, I’m sure once they reach a decision you’ll be notified.”

“That’s stupid,” Neville huffed, a rather large outburst for him – and Harry appreciated it, although it hadn’t seemed to have made a dent in Lupin’s cloak.

“You kids have been through a lot today, best get home.”

Harry watched as Lupin brought his wand out and took off his shoe. He watched as he muttered incantations beneath his breath and listened as they melded with the hushed silences of the other wizards.

“Portkey,” Lupin smiled, “it will take you to Grimmauld Place. Sirius and I will join you shortly.”

Harry took a deep breath as he prepared to argue, but that breath fizzled out and died as Hermione placed her hand gently on his shoulder, warding off any fulsome ideas that were afoot in his mind.

Harry, with a new scowl upon his face, reached out and snatched the lace of the boot.

He held it in front of his eyes, expectantly, and watched with disinterest as the focus shifted from the lace, to the men, to the lace, to the men. The lace, the men…

And then Ron held it, then Hermione, and Neville, Luna and Ginny. Harry hooded his eyes, turning back to his friends as a hurricane of white enveloped his vision, and they were lifted off the ground – away from the action, and back to Grimmauld Place.

XxX

“After everything we’ve done, they can’t just shut us out like that,” Harry bellowed, kicking a chair as his friends watched in dismay.

“Harry -, “

“No, Hermione!” Harry breathed, his chest rising and falling with the tick of the clock.

“We beat Voldemort, and they won’t tell us about the new threat.”

Harry pulled up the chair, the splinters lodging themselves in his hand as he grappled with it, finally seating himself with his head in his hands and betrayal on his mind.

“They were trying to keep us safe, Harry,” Luna tried, her soft voice a kind alternative to the voices shouting bloody murder in Harry’s mind.

Harry closed his eyes against his palm.

The Chamber of Secrets, The Philosophers Stone, The Forbidden Forest, The Triwizard Tournament, even Umbridge.

When have they ever tried to keep him safe? In fact, it was Dumbledore himself who abandoned him to the Dursleys.

“That makes it a first,” Harry muttered, welcoming the headache as a sign that he was still alive. Although the tingle that passed through his scar, along the branches of the lightning bolt, caused him to shiver in remembrance, and instinctively clench his fists.

But Voldemort was gone.

Wasn’t he?

“Harry don’t say that,” Hermione scolded, “Dumbledore has always strived to protect you, even if the situations weren’t… the best. You have to trust his judgement, or it will drive you crazy.”

“No one knows what Dumbledore’s thinking, that’s like his trademark,” Ginny smirked, pulling up a chair and sitting down next to Harry, “don’t beat yourself up about it.”

“Yeah, mate, you just beat frickin’ Voldemort!” Ron roared, puffing out his chest as he did so, which caused them all to laugh hysterically at him. Even Harry, whose mind was filled with the darkest thoughts, joined in, the breaths of joy a sweet distraction from everything else.

XxX

Tom Riddle couldn’t see past the blinding white of St Mungo’s Hospital walls. The hastily applied screen around his bed didn’t help, and the outlines of figures arguing from behind it put such a damper on the situation, since he couldn’t see them. And he hated not knowing.

Tom blinked, once; twice, then raised his hand to his head, pushing curls up away from his eyes to try to see more. Alas, nothing. All that it did was cause his head to burn from the coldness of his fingers.

He shifted in his sheets, slightly, and was careful to make naught but a sound as he sat up in his bed, stretching his legs and working his stiffened ankles.

He yawned, rather rudely – although no one could see him, but reminded himself that quietness was key. He didn’t know these people.

He reached under the sheets, fumbling at his trouser leg for his wand, for some semblance of protection. Just in case.

It wasn’t there. Typical.

He turned his torso slightly, trying to spy something of use from behind those godforsaken blinds.

Again, nothing. He had to assume that they had been placed meticulously for this very reason, and that they had found out about everything.

Otherwise, why wouldn’t they trust him?

And why would he be in St Mungo’s, if not for falling to the hand of a much more experienced wizard?

Or perhaps, he hit his head on the way down to the chamber. That would explain the splitting headache, and why they had seemingly intended to hide him away. They must have known. It would also explain the copious amounts of dust on his robes, which were flying off in small particles as they padded around the airspace.

Tom shifted himself and waited for silence, listening intently to the conversation happening outside the curtains.

“He’s just a boy!”

“A boy that grows up to kill!”

“Obliviate him?” One suggested, and Tom felt himself stiffen even more. He had no means of protection, no means to stop them. He felt helpless.

“It seems that young Mr. Riddle does not have any memories to begin with,” someone said, and Tom recognized the voice.

It was soft, yet jocular, and it carried on.

“It seems, that according to his mind, he still believes himself 16. He still believes it to be 1943. If he was Lord Voldemort, I doubt any of us would still be standing.”

‘Still believes’? Tom’s head spun as he tried to factorize the implications of that phrase. Was it not 1943? And had he somehow aged himself?

He felt along the jaw of his face, and found no imperfections, per usual. In all senses, Tom seemed to be 16. Utterly, and humanly, a child.

Another question spun into his mind, along with gritted teeth and a determined spunk. If it wasn’t 1943, where was he?

“Anyhow, gentlemen, it seems that young Mister Riddle will not awaken for quite a while. Get yourselves some rest; I shall watch over him,” the voice said again, and was met with the grumblings of middle-aged men as they considered a nice meal and a healthy sleep.

As they door closed, Tom let his breath go slightly, but not fully. There was still one silhouette after all, standing – watching him, through the curtain.

“I must say, Tom, it has been a while,” the man spoke, and pulled back the curtains.

‘Dumbledore?’ Tom thought in disbelief, letting his wonder get the best of him. It seemed that it was his teacher, yet, much, much older. His beard had reached down to his torso and coloured itself white, the hair matching its length but starting further up, and ending shorter. He wore purple robes that painted all the stars of astronomy on them, glistening against the purest white of the hospital walls. His eyes twinkled with the same glinted cheek, and his wrinkled face was spread into a small smile.

Tom regained himself, pulling his posture upwards and neutralizing his face.

“Has it,” he observed, not fully able to hide the shake in his voice, “I seem to remember seeing you only yesterday.”

Dumbledore laughed jovially.

“As do I, Tom. Time is a fickle thing,” - trust Dumbledore to speak unabashed- “and I do not think that that goes unnoticed by you. How much did you hear of our… delightful conversation?”

Tom pursed his lips, and looked towards the spectacled eyes of Dumbledore, his eyebrows bushier but his eyes the same.

“Not as much as I would have liked,” Tom admitted – there was never any point in telling white lies to Dumbledore. Big lies, yes, but lies so minute that they meant nothing were best kept away from his prying eyes.

Dumbledore twinkled back at him. “It seems me and these Ministry Men have come at a crossroads, Tom, and I was hoping you could help.”

A trap, obviously. Dumbledore was the most unsubtle mystery man he had ever known, and he still often found himself spun in cobwebs trying to figure the meanings behind his words.

“I would be delighted to, Professor,” Tom smiled boyishly. He was a prefect, after all, and had an image to maintain – no matter how outdated that image may be.

“Very good. I see time has not made you any less careful with your words,” Dumbledore smiled knowingly, and the irony behind his statement did not go unnoticed.

“Well, Tom, it seems we have come to a disagreement regarding you. We simply have differing views on what to do with you.”

Tom nodded along, his mind racing as he felt around for something besides him, anything, that could be used as a weapon.

“I will not lie to you, my boy,” Dumbledore sighed. True pity lined his wrinkles.

“You grow up to be a pernicious, noxious and nefarious wizard, and grow up to cause pain and suffering to everyone who comes into contact with you.”

Tom was taken aback. Shock was surly present on his face in some form, but much of his features remained as neutral as before. He wasn’t the most moral person, granted, but evil?

“How?” Was all he could say, all he could say to keep his cover from being unraveled.

“Horcruxes, Tom. Evil things, and things you should never have gotten involved with,” Dumbledore said gravely, his once lighthearted features stern and hard.

Tom was suddenly reminded of the orphanage, and of every disapproving adult he had ever had the misfortune of meeting. It caused a much more obvious look of pain and balefulness, which did not go unnoticed by Dumbledore.

“Thankfully, however, you now have the chance to change,” Dumbledore said, “and I was just suggesting to the Ministry Men how beneficial it would be for you to reform at Hogwarts, rather than in a cell at Azkaban.”

Tom blinked at the old man.

“I would much prefer Hogwarts,” he said, and Dumbledore smiled.

“I knew you would,” he chortled, “Of course, arrangements must be made. We would need to find a family willing to take you in, and then there’s the matter of settling you in amongst the students – many of them having had suffered from your hand, mind you – and we would most definitely have to move you away from the Slytherin common rooms. Too much corruption to happen there, I’m afraid.”

“If anyone can do it, you can Professor,” Tom connived; compliments always masked deceit. Regardless of the state of shock he was in, he could still twist Dumbledore to his means. He was a snake, after all.

Dumbledore’s eyes glittered. Perhaps he knew, but Tom didn’t care. He did not want to go to Azkaban.

“Right you are, Tom. Right you are.”


	2. Chapter 2

Harry thrust his fist out, wooden splinters flying from the door in fits of anger, mirroring the gritted and frustrated look on his face. He panted, the breaths leaving him as fleeting as they came. He could hear the faraway conversation downstairs, and the laughter that came with it.

He should be laughing, but for some reason, he couldn’t.

“Hey.”

Harry turned around to Sirius, his clothes raggedy and unkempt, despite being the heir to the entire Black fortune. In fact, despite the cleanliness of his face and hair, Harry might have been able to believe that Sirius had only just escaped Azkaban. Then again, his name was only recently cleared; he had been a criminal in the eyes of the world for far too long.

“Hey,” Harry returned, not even bothering to hide the jagged hole in the door. His fists were still clenched, small trails of blood running between his fingers from cuts sliced across his knuckles.

Sirius sighed, not saying anything, and Harry felt a pang of guilt wash through him.

“I understand your frustration,” Sirius stated, and Harry heard himself scoff in remark. Sirius raised an eyebrow, but otherwise kept quiet – Harry suspected he was trying not to appear hypocritical. He was a Marauder, after all. They didn’t have the safest and most polite track record.

“But Harry, hear me on this. _There is nothing you can do.”_

Harry felt himself go still, all anger flowing out of him in tendrils of smoke from Vernon’s cigarette, or in blasts of gleaming green light.

“There’s always something I can do,” Harry debunked through clenched teeth, and turned away from Sirius. But there was nowhere he could go. Downstairs – to deal with the worrying and ranting of his friends? or he could stay here and listen to Sirius’ attempt at saving him.

“Not this time, buddy,” Sirius smiled, perhaps a pang of pity seeping in.

“If you would just tell me,” Harry pleaded, but was cut off abruptly by Sirius’ arms around his shoulders, in a tight embrace.

“You’ll find out soon enough,” Sirius sighed vaguely, and Harry felt himself loosen slightly. But not fully.

Sirius pulled away, his long hair stuck familiarly up in the air, and his grey eyes glistened with secrets. And love.

“Go down to your friends, Harry,” Sirius pleaded, standing up tall. Harry didn’t argue. Not out loud.

XxX

 

“Oh, Harry!” The soothing voice of Mrs. Weasley washed over him as he stepped into the kitchen, the smell of bread cooking from the oven. He blinked, processing the many Weasley’s sat at the table, running the figures on his other friends surrounding them.

How hadn’t he known?

“Mrs. Weasley, hi?” Harry asked, as a question, and received a squeezing hug from Mrs. Weasley in return.

“Molly, dear! Call me Molly! How many times must I tell you?” She scorned playfully, patting his arm as if to make sure he was still alive.

“Once more, Mrs. Weasley,” Harry replied, a half-eaten smile on his face. Mrs. Weasley took it, and returned over to the stove, waving her wand at some potatoes.

“Harry,” Ron called, his mouth stuffed and face red, his plate piled full of sumptuous food.

Harry walked over to him and sat down – back bent and head held high, as per usual. He couldn’t let them know he was hurting – couldn’t let them know his _scar_ was hurting.

“Everything alright, mate?”

Well, there goes that plan.

“Yeah, fine,” Harry replied, but Ron’s face was naught if not skeptical. But when Harry smiled back at him, he seemed contented, and returned to his plate of food.

It was as if no one realized how easy it was to fake a smile.

“Harry!” Hermione squealed, rushing over with envelopes clutched between her fingers.

Harry raised an eyebrow.

“OWL results!” She continued, pushing two of the envelopes towards Ron and him. They looked at each other in dread, and looked back at Hermione, who was already tearing open hers with vigor.

Her eyes scanned the pages, large.

“Ten OWL’s’!” She observed, in a bit of shock. Harry grinned - actually grinned - and nudged her shoulder.

“That’s amazing Hermione,” he congratulated, and she beamed at him. Harry kicked Ron underneath the table.

“Yeah, ‘Mione,” Ron said, muffled, kicking Harry back for good measure.

She smiled at both of them, and gestured towards their own envelopes.

“Go on then!” She said.

Harry and Ron took a nervous glance at one another, before reaching for the brown death traps.

Harry slid his finger over the seal, met with no resistance, and pulled the white sheet out slowly.

He read it.

“Seven,” he murmured, staring at the rather large ‘E’ in potions he had received.

“Me too, mate,” Ron said, craning over to read his paper.

“Oh bummer, I got an ‘E’ in potions too,” Ron consoled, patting his back. Hermione frowned, confused.

“Why is that a bad thing?” She asked.

“Because that means we have to take potions this year,” he and Ron replied in unison, both with sulks on their features.

XxX

 

Tom sat, his arms crossed over his chest, as he read the newspaper laid on his lap in front of him. Talks of Death Eater rampages, and the invention of a new type of instrument. It was all rather boring really.

He had been sat in St Mungo’s now for near a month, the days passing slowly and the nights even longer, due to lack of sleep.

Dumbledore had not since visited, leaving Tom with the tidbit of information that he was to grow up to be the new Hitler.

It wasn’t as if he was surprised of his motives. He hated muggleborns – filthy mudbloods – with all his being, and he hated being of relation to a muggle. But to go as far as torture; murder….

It was no secret that Tom was... morally grey. He had a history of violence, charm, and manipulation. He used people and tossed them aside, but not before toying with their feelings for good measure. He liked secrets, and he liked to have them.

But now, if he were to return to Hogwarts, there would be no secrets. No face to hide behind. He was the young Lord Voldemort, and Dumbledore would make sure that the entire school knew it.

He wasn’t proud of his future, mind you. Bested by a toddler, and again by a teenager – a Gryffindor no less. Not to mention the fact that he hadn’t exactly pictured himself growing up into a Dark Lord. He had wanted to be a teacher, _a teacher!_ and he would have made a good one at that. He supposed that wasn’t possible, now. Oh well.

He was impressed with his collection of followers though. Even after his supposed death, they were avenging his name. Would they follow a 16-year-old boy however, was another matter altogether.

Although in theory, he couldn’t use them either. Darn.

Tom was sure that going back to Hogwarts was the best option of the two, but only by a slim region in which he had many issues of residing in.

Despite the expectations, Tom wasn’t sure he wanted to be Lord Voldemort. Of course, he _was_ Lord Voldemort, and he had been using that name in 1943 as well. But with the connotations it had nowadays, he couldn’t say he connected with it quite as much.

It was a big jump from terrorizing students with petty secrets to killing and ravaging towns and villages for a smidgen of information. It wasn’t a jump Tom particularly wanted to take, either.

Then there was the matter of horcruxes. According to Dumbledore, they would be his downfall, although he had expected them to be the antithesis, really.

Immortality was still a big objective sure, but he could find an option that didn’t involve him turning into a snake faced monster of a man.

He was fine being the rather attractive monster of a man he was, thank you very much.

“Mr. Riddle, you have a visitor,” a woman tittered from besides him, her face nervous and stretched into a forced smile. They kept changing his nurses, he supposed to stop himself getting close enough to manipulate them. Thanks for that, Dumbledore.

Tom nodded at her, and she rushed off, her tail between her legs. One positive of being Lord Voldemort, he supposed, was the newfound fear factor he just couldn’t quite reach as a teenager in his own time.

He sat back in the bed, straight up and head held high as he lifted the newspaper to his eyes.

Out of the corner of them, however, he spotted a flash of silver.

“Lucius Malfoy is here to see you,” the nurse chirped, before rushing out of the room with the door swiftly closed behind her.

Tom looked up slightly, trying not to show interest – although he was curious, he admitted.

Lucius Malfoy looked much like the Malfoy from his time, slender with platinum blond hair. He wore rich robes of black and grey, and carried a cane.

“My Lord, you look rather young,” the man spoke at last, his voice gravelly.

Tom put down the newspaper.

“I am no Lord of yours, Malfoy,” he hissed, standing up from his hospital bed. They had gifted him a shirt, and a vest – clothes closer to that of the 1940’s - and Tom had to say he was grateful.

What impression of fear could he possibly produce whilst wearing a wilted Hogwarts crest?

“What do you mean?” Malfoy asked, careful of his words as he spoke them through gritted teeth.

Tom looked down on him – a positive to being tall – and smirked.

“I am but 16, am I not?” He said in reply, and saw the Malfoy gulp.

“Only in body,” Lucius threw back, and Tom chuckled. It was dark and intimidating to a degree, and he saw the Malfoy man take a step back.

“Right you are, Lucius, but let’s keep that between the two of us,” Tom winked, sitting back down into his bed.

He was lying, of course, but he couldn’t lose his followers. They could come of use.

He picked _The Daily Prophet_ back up, and scanned it with disinterest, aware of the man’s presence still.

“I am done with you, Lucius,” Tom dismissed, and saw the man scuttle out of the door from the corner of his eye.

Shaking his head and returning to the familiar pages of the newspaper, Tom read. It was interesting in a sense, although roughly like that of his own time. It seemed that the wizarding world hadn’t moved forwards much, except for the downfall of Grindelwald, and of Voldemort. A pity, really. The muggles had changed much more.

Tom stood once more, moving swiftly over to the window in his serpentine elegance.

His room was empty; the hospital couldn’t risk anyone else with him, and very quiet. Every gulp, every breath he made was like a jab to the eardrums, and he couldn’t even calm himself with the bustling of healers outside. The noise just wasn’t there.

Tom placed his hands on the ledge, and stared out. Streets paved with muggles lined the roads – with automobiles brought to a standstill within them. The buildings were larger, and futuristic, and it seemed that the muggle world had grown a little since he last saw it.

He reminded himself quickly, that he was a wizard, and a powerful one at that. Muggles should be of no consequence.

Tom caught his reflection in the dusted glass of the window, and smiled back at himself. He had always been attractive, and had always been able to use it to his advantage. And yes, he supposed himself a narcissist, but there were worse things. Lord Voldemort, for example, was a worse thing.

Dark chocolate curls fell gently over one eyebrow, the waves tamed with naught but a brush – no product. The perfection he had achieved made him bristle with pride, but as he stared into his own blue eyes – he saw red ones, glaring back at him.

He stumbled backwards, his hands off the ledge, as he stared into the glowing red of the Dark Lord.

The face in the glass was white, and gaunt, scarlet rubies settling back on him, a soft smirk playing on his lips.

It wasn’t him.

“Come to me, Tom,” the face whispered, in a language that only Tom understood. Parseltongue.

“Tom,” the voice goaded, and the waves of sound swirled around his ears like ropes.

“Stop it,” he croaked, reaching back towards his bedpost in escape.

The voice cackled an inhumane laugh, and followed him. Followed him to the table besides the bed, and followed him as he opened the drawer. A copy of a muggle bible sat there, perhaps to spite him, but Tom grabbed it, nonetheless.

He ran, and threw it – the smash heard throughout London as the face in the window disappeared into the many shards across the floor.

Tom panted heavily, and straightened himself once he heard the door open.

“Having fun?” Dumbledore asked from behind him, and Tom stiffened.

“Very much so,” Tom answered back, turning around to the Headmaster with a boyish charm playing on his face. Dumbledore wasn’t affected, as per usual, and Tom deflated slightly.

He glanced at the many boxes on his bed.

“School supplies, and new clothes” Dumbledore clarified, “everything one might need for their sixth year at Hogwarts.”

Tom nodded, excitement welling up inside of him as he thought of flipping through the many books that lay in there.

But he had a question to ask.

“Professor?” Tom said, and Dumbledore looked up at him.

“Yes, Tom?” Dumbledore replied, with the same suaveness that Tom prided himself on. There was no emotion in either of their faces, or voices, and the cause was a battle of information from those not willing to give it.

“Harry Potter,” he said. That was _all_ he said. But Dumbledore knew, and his face saddened slightly.

“He’ll find out soon enough. Before school starts,” Dumbledore clarified, and Tom nodded in response.

“Thank you.”

The old man looked at him quizzically, searching his eyes for something worth noting.

“You haven’t changed one bit,” Dumbledore observed, perhaps in senility, before rising to leave the room.

As the door shut behind him, Tom let go of his breath, bringing his attention to the boxes on his bed.

If they were wrapped, he could almost believe them to be Christmas presents, even though it was August.

At least, that’s what he heard that Christmas presents looked like.

He had never received one, after all.

 


	3. Chapter 3

Harry had discovered the hard way that counting the days actually makes them go slower. Three weeks to go, three weeks till he’ll be at Hogwarts, and he couldn’t wait.

And there was the issue.

He couldn’t wait.

Tapping his leg against the table, fiddling with his fingers, checking the clock – which was stupid, he knew – Harry was starting to lose his mind.

He supposed he should be grateful, since he no longer had to spend the summer with the Dursleys, and he can actually be with his friends, but for some reason being in Grimmauld Place proved to be worse for his focus.

Hermione was constantly on his back, telling him that he should be studying for exams that were still two years to come, and the twins were exhausting him simply by being Fred and George.

Not to mention, that he still didn’t know what the heck was going on.

He’d walk down the darkened corridor, hair messier than usual and eyes groggy, and see Sirius, Lupin and Mr. Weasley having secret talks in some faraway corner. Upon inspection, they all looked worried, which made Harry want to know more.

He could help! And all they were doing was shutting him out.

Three weeks to Hogwarts.

Three weeks to get some proper answers.

“Wotcher, Harry,” a woman said, before a hand slapped him upside the head.

Harry rubbed the back of his neck, grinning, as they fluorescent pink head of Tonks materialized in front of his face.

“Wotcher, Tonks,” he replied, head stinging and face stretched into laughter.

Tonks nodded at him, pulling up a chair and laying her feet lackadaisically across the table top. She pulled out a copy of The Quibbler and flicked through it, probably completely aware that the pages were upside down.

“Uh, Tonks?” Harry asked, walking apprehensively over to the table. Tonks was an Auror, if anyone was going to know what was going on, it would be her.

“Yep,” she said, popping the P, not looking up from her unreadable magazine.

“You wouldn’t happen to know why everyone’s being so secretive, would you?” He asked quietly, so Sirius wouldn’t here. The house had ears, he was sure of it.

Although, the portraits hated Sirius, so they probably wouldn’t blab. Probably.

“Secretive, nah!” She scoffed, although she avoided his eyes, “you know everyone, we’re just super busy back at the ministry.”

Harry squinted his eyes at her, and furrowed his brow.

“Tonks,” he said simply; sternly, and waited for her to look up at him.

Her Hufflepuff nature got the better of her; she wanted to help, and she looked up at him with big eyes turned bright purple in an attempt to distract him.

Harry crossed his arms in response.

“Harry, I can’t tell you. It’s not my place,” she sighed, and Harry deflated.

“You know, you sound just like Lupin,” he snapped, “everyone here sounds the same. Harry you don’t need to know, Harry you can’t handle it.”

Tonks shook her head, her loose locks of pink turning green as she stood up to place her hands on Harry’s shoulders.

“No-one thinks you can’t handle it, Harry. We’re just trying to get the situation under control completely before releasing the information to the public. But I assure you, you’ll be the first to know.”

Harry sighed in defeat, and Tonks winked at him.

“Is it bad, at least?” Harry asked, desperate to know if he could help or not, hypothetically.

“Depends how you look at it,” Tonks answered, her back to Harry as she turned out the door, her paint splotched cloak flying around the corner in finality.

Harry stared at the floor, his mind working a million to try and figure out something.

It had to do with Voldemort, it just had to. Everyone had been acting odd since that day in the Department of Mysteries, when Voldemort died.

Had he not died?

But that can’t possibly be true: Tonks said that the situation was at least half good. And there was nothing good about Voldemort coming back from the dead.

“Harry?” Hermione queried from behind him and he sighed in response.

“I have to find out what the hell is going on, ‘Mione,” he said, and Hermione nodded.

“I know,” she replied knowledgably, as Hermione often does, and reached over to hug him.

He gladly accepted, pulling her into him and burying his face into her hair, breathing heavily into it.

“If it was bad, they would have told you, Harry,” Hermione consoled, rubbing his back.

“I’m not so sure they would have,” Harry said stubbornly, and was surprised when Hermione giggled in response.

“Cheer up, Harry, we’re going to Diagon Alley today!” Hermione said, her hands on his shoulders as she pulled away from him grinning. Harry gaped.

“I forgot,” he said, and Hermione looked at him quizzically.

“You’ve been excited to go to Hogwarts for weeks; how did you forget?” She said, exasperated. Harry shrugged coyly.

“Guess I had a lot on my mind,” he answered. Hermione groaned at him.

“Come on, you need to get dressed,” she ordered, causing Harry to look down in confusion. He was still in his pajamas, of course, with bedhead and sore eyes and a yawn teasing at his tongue.

Harry nodded, turning away from her and sloping up the stairs, ignoring the cries of the portraits at the ‘dishonour’! that he gave the Black family.

XxX

Tom had had a lot of time to think those past weeks. A lot of time to mull over Lord Voldemort, his death, and the coming school year.

Polite and charming as he was to the nurses, in private he was red eyed and frustrated at the sentences typed lazily into the history books: ‘On all Hallows Eve of 1981, Lord Voldemort was killed by Harry Potter, then a one year old boy; the only person known to have survived the killing curse.’

It didn’t make any sense. How could he, he, be killed by a baby?

Alright, perhaps Lord Voldemort wasn’t the future he wanted, and perhaps Lord Voldemort wasn’t him at all, but it confused Tom to the heavens. And Tom didn’t like to not know things.

As he scanned the words once more, Tom punched the bed, causing the pristine sheets to ruffle and the bed to bounce against his miniscule weight. He may have been tall, but he certainly wasn’t broad.

According to the records, Harry Potter would be 16 by now, the same age as Tom, and using logical reasoning it was safe to say that he would be attending Hogwarts in the same year as he would be entering.

Great.

Being born in the 1920’s, Tom was raised on the philosophy that manners made a good person. He had tweaked that slightly, and decided that manners make a good way to get someone to do what you want.

And since being informed that no one uses the word ‘darb’ anymore – which was unfortunate, it had been such a good compliment – Tom had made it his own personal mission to find out as much about this time as possible.

That meant learning the hard way that manners were not as cultivated as ‘the olden days’, and almost stabbing a man that closed the door on him.

It didn’t help that no patients here knew who he was – he was used to that of course, however with the newfound fear that he controlled it would help if they could know his identity. Then again, the mentally unstable institute that he was currently sitting in – even though he was perfectly sane – may not house people well enough to even comprehend that information.

Some were nice, at least.

There was a woman next door named Alice Longbottom – an old family, that he could respect - kept gifting him sweet wrappers and reaching upwards to pat his head.

She seemed nice, and her smile – although faraway and vague – reminded him of the old matron of the hospital ward at Hogwarts. She would probably be dead by now, he thought.

And locked here in this place, Tom couldn’t help but wonder – how many of these patients were here because of him? How many had he tortured, or hurt?

He wasn’t feeling guilty, of course – guilt is another way of saying someone’s better than you, but he definitely felt regret. Yes, regret. He regretted his future actions, but he didn’t feel guilty for them; he hadn’t done anything. At least not yet.

And like Tom, Voldemort most likely didn’t take responsibility for what happened. Or worse, he had taken culpability, and relished in the pain he had caused.

Again, Tom wasn’t the most moral person alive, and had been known to bully from time to time, but he would never describe himself as a terrorist, a dictator.

He sank into the bed, laid down threw his arms over his head in a childlike manner: he wasn’t used to being a child. It was rather fun.

But of course, as he said to Lucius, people don’t take orders from a child; people don’t listen to a child.

And if he was ever going to build his reputation again, he needed people to listen.

Tom closed his eyes against the blinding white and focused on the soft stream of pain panging at his forehead. He would almost say that it was like someone was inside his head, if it weren’t for the fact that he was a skillful occulemens. He knew what it felt like to have someone steal the things you kept close. This wasn’t it.

He had to say, that an upside of being in the future was that the fabric of the clothes was much better quality. He had no rashes, and his skin didn’t itch. Alphard Black used to joke that he had fleas, but he shut that down as quickly as it had come.

He couldn’t have people making fun of him, after all. What kind of leader would he be?

Tom’s mind went to his NEWT option form placed over on the side of the table. He had achieved 11 OWL’s, all O’s, missing one because he had simply refused to take Muggle Studies, and could figuratively take any courses he wanted to. He had chosen to take them all, of course dropping none, to keep his options open. Now that he wasn’t going to become an evil overlord, his future plans were quite ambiguous.

He had wanted to be a teacher – potions, perhaps. Or Arithmancy?

He had once relished in the idea of being an Auror, but he figured that that dream might have soared away. That suited Tom, however, considering he would never put his life on the line to help others. He was too engulfed in his own self preservation to do that.

Perhaps he could go on to be a Magizooligist, considering the fact that he was a Parselmouth and could speak to snakes, but he’d probably end up killing the animals. He was only one for self-preservation, after all. Everyone else was of no consequence.

He was only 16, though. No need to think that far ahead.

The ticking of the clock on the wall – magic, he had realized, after fearing it was muggle – caused his brain to tingle and body to sink deeper into the hard mattress.

“Mr. Riddle?” A man asked, his mouth muffled by his rather large moustache.

“Yes,” Tom replied, still laid on his bed. It was a bit rude, he knew, but hey! No-one cared.

“Professor Dumbledore is here to escort you down to Diagon Alley to get your wand”

Tom immediately got up.

XxX

 

“Harry, come on!” Hermione shouted, already ahead of them. Him, the Weasley’s, Sirius and Remus were walking in a pack down Diagon Alley, Hermione already up ahead with Luna and Ginny, talking about God knows what. Probably school work.

Ginny turned around and rolled her eyes.

Yep. Definitely school work.

Sirius was still in dog form, Padfoot, as Sirius weren’t sure if word had reached the crowds of his innocence.

When Harry asked why that would be, Sirius dismissed him, and shielded his eyes.

At least they were together. The Weasley’s weren’t an intimidating lot, but there were a lot of them, and they circled around Harry protecting him from the stunned civilians with mouths agape and horrid reporters, their cameras floating above the crowd to get an aerial shot of them.

Ever since Voldemort died, Harry had been promoted from ‘The Boy Who Lived’, to the ‘Savior of the Wizarding World’, and it was exhausting. Not only was he still famous, but people were literally tripping over themselves trying to get his autograph.

A man that was nearly twice his height loomed over him, bouncing like a little kid on his toes, and held out his pad and pen for a signature. Harry had respectfully given it – if not out of fear – and ever since opened up the floodgate for more fans to pour through.

But soon, the group had to split.

“I need a new wand, Harry. Mine’s not been the same since the battle,” Hermione said, pointing to Ollivander’s. Luna grabbed her arm and waved them off as she and the brunette sauntered into the shop.

Then Fred and George had to rush off and check on the smoke coming out of their joke shop.

Then Ginny and Ron needed to get their new robes.

Then Remus needed to get new potion ingredients for his lycanthropy concoctions.

And soon it was only Sirius and Harry, or Harry and a dog, based on how you looked at it.

It was harder to avoid people when the only protection you had was a mangy black dog who half the time was distracted by the passing witches, and sometimes wizards. There was a particularly fetching man buying a newt, and Harry had to literally push Sirius away, through the puddles of his own drool.

XxX

 

“You know, I might get a new wand,” Luna said dozily, her large eyes looking off somewhere into the distance, her pale blonde hair pulled up into a bun by her current wand, which was covered in scratches and dents. Hermione bit her lip.

“If you want,” she agreed, not letting on anymore. It was as if Luna could read minds.

Hermione pushed open the door to Ollivander’s, and was greeted by the familiar sight of Professor Dumbledore.

“Professor!” Luna called, waving her arm around, catching the old wizard’s attention instantly. He turned around, his half moon glasses gazing down at them, and smiled warmly.

“Miss Granger, Miss Lovegood,” he greeted, his arms behind his back in a polite greeting.

Luna waved again and Hermione nodded at him.

“What are you doing here, sir?” Hermione asked, generally curious.

“Why, buying a wand for a young friend,” Dumbledore admitted, and Hermione was reminded of how similar he was to Luna. She too made no sense, sometimes.

“Oh,” Hermione asked confused, “where is this friend?”

Dumbledore looked down at her, and for a second, she thought she saw his smile falter.

“He’s out back, with Mr. Ollivander. He doesn’t do well with people,” Dumbledore said, glancing at his watch.

“Well, dears, I must be going. Please tell my young companion to meet me outside Gringotts when he is finished,” Dumbledore said, nodding at the both of them.

“Bye!” Luna waved, and Hermione sighed. Surely her arm must be getting tired by now.

Dumbledore dipped his head as he disappeared out the door, the sound of the bell that followed him sounding much more ominous than before.

“He was hiding something,” Luna said, and Hermione stepped back slightly.

She needed to learn not to underestimate her.

“What do you think it was?” Hermione asked curiously, and Luna shrugged her shoulders, which jiggled the strawberries hanging from her ears.

“Something to do with his friend,” she guessed, and Hermione pursed her lips.

“Perhaps. Should we tell Harry about him?”

“You wouldn’t be talking at me now, would you?” Someone said from behind them. Hermione spun around, along with Luna, and was face to face with a rather handsome young man. He was tall, 6ft or so if she had to guess, and sported a rather old fashioned outfit of slacks, a shirt and vest. He had brown hair, curly, and bright blue eyes. His face was angular, yet soft, with high cheekbones and a rather sharp jawline.

Hermione might have found herself swooning, if not for the coldness in his eyes.

“And who might you be?” She asked, and the boy looked down at her.

“Thomas Peverell,” he said, and Hermione perked up.

“You’re related to the Peverell’s?”

“Distantly,” the boy smiled, but there was no humour behind it, “What about you?”

“Luna Lovegood and Hermione Granger,” Luna said, offering her hand to the Thomas.

When he didn’t shake it, she pulled away, her bubbly exterior popped and sad.

“Granger?” Thomas inquired, putting his hands behind his back, “I don’t think I’ve heard of that name before.”

Hermione stiffened, “my parents are muggle.”

Thomas’ eyes sparkled, like the barrel of a gun as he looked down at her.

“Interesting,” he mused.

Hermione stood tall. “Professor Dumbledore asked if you would meet him outside Gringotts once you’re finished,” she said, gesturing towards the door.

“Did he now?” Thomas said, patronizing and teasing and slightly seductive. Hermione shook her head.

“Best be off, then,” the boy purred, walking towards the door.

Once the chime of the bells had rung, Luna turned to her.

“He was lying,” she stated, “there is no Peverell called Thomas.”

“There never has been.”


	4. Chapter 4

Tom had to say – he hadn’t expected to meet anyone in the shop. He was sure Dumbledore was capable of handling at least _that._

Not that he had had any trouble of course; it was just inconvenient. This whole situation was just inconvenient.

He walked briskly down the crowded streets of Diagon Alley and spotted a rather large joke shop on the corner by the name of ‘Weasley Wizard Wheezes’ – he would have been able to guess the family alone based on the copious amounts of red – and decided that he would have to visit there, without his chaperone, at a later date.

His new wand hummed lightly in his pocket, and every time Tom’s arm brushed past it, it buzzed in excitement. Unfortunately, it was highly likely that Dumbledore had already placed the trace back on him. No magic. Yet.

It was a curious little wand.

Same as his old – a phoenix feather – 13 inches, pliant, with chestnut wood. However, what was exceedingly curious was the fact that this particular phoenix had only given two feathers before – which had resided in his old wand and one other. Only recently had he relinquished a new one. Had the phoenix known? The sparkle in Dumbledore’s eye when the wand chose him seemed to say yes, however it was highly unlikely that the phoenix itself had any inclination of the future, or past. No, it was far more likely that it was the man who fed him, and preened him.

The same man who was stood tall at the entrance to Gringotts.

“Mister Riddle, I trust you got what you needed?” Dumbledore asked, his half-moon spectacles smudged ever so slightly.

“Of course, Professor.”

It was best to stay polite. Charm was a form of manipulation, after all, and manners themselves a form of the layman’s weapon of a sword. Tom had learned that early on, when is warden at the orphanage had taken a particular distaste to him – for no apparent reason.

“Then I suggest we get going – I have arranged for you to meet your hosts for the school year this afternoon,” Dumbledore said, sticking his elbow out for apparation.

Tom hesitated. Hosts?

Of course! he thought. The orphanage was no more – good riddance – so he had nowhere to stay. He certainly couldn’t make comfort out of St Mungo’s for the school year; it had been bad enough to stay there for the past few weeks.

“Do they have children?” Tom asked, before taking Dumbledore’s arm.

The elder man chuckled to himself.

“Most definitely,” he replied, before disappearing with a soft pop.

XxX

 

“Why would he lie, though?” Hermione questioned to Luna as they walked back to meet up with the others. The blonde looked to her, then shrugged her shoulders.

“A lot of people are ashamed of their blood. Perhaps that’s why he lied, to cover up the fact that he wasn’t pureblood.”

Hermione pondered the fact. “It would make sense why he was so interested with my surname.”

Luna smiled to herself – almost deviously – before returning her aloft gaze to Hermione.

“Why are you so interested in him?” Luna inquired, and Hermione felt her cheeks warm significantly.

“I’m merely stating facts,” she replied, before holding her head high and smiling slightly at the giggle beside her.

“Hey ‘Mione!” Ron shouted from a table, gorging himself on a rather large sundae. The whole Weasley clan seemed to take up the next few tables, with Harry and Remus next to Ron, and a rather scruffy Padfoot sunbathing on the floor.

Hermione smiled at the sea of redheads, and pulled up a chair next to Ron.

“Honestly Ronald,” she chastised, wrinkling her nose, “anyone would think you’re five with the amount of chocolate around your face.”

“It’s seemingly becoming a trend, you pointing out the mess on Ron’s face,” Luna pointed out, sitting cross legged on the dirty floor next to Sirius, scratching behind his ears.

“How could you possibly know that!” Ron asked, a small line of strawberry sauce dribbling down the side of his gaping mouth.

“A girl has her ways.”

Hermione shook off Luna’s omniscience, and looked over at Harry.

“What did you guys get up to?” She asked, picking the cherry of the top of Ron’s sundae, and was met with such a look of betrayal that you’d think Hermione had lobbed off one of his legs.

“Nothing much. Went to look at the brooms, but none were as good as the Thunderbolt,” Harry said, looking rather bored. Hermione had to agree, nothing was as good as Harry’s broom. However, that didn’t mean they weren’t good. Heck, even the earliest Cleansweeps seemed fast to her.

But then again, she couldn’t fly. At all. So, everything faster than running pace was fast to her.

“What about you?”

“I got my new wand,” Hermione beamed, lifting the box up to show them. It looked similar to her old one, but yet it was exhilaratingly new. 11 inches, oak wood, with a unicorn hair core, swishy and flexible.

“Cool,” Harry said, craning his neck over her head to look at… something.

“What is it?” She asked, turning around, but seeing nothing.

Harry shook his head.

“Nothing, I just thought I saw someone.”

Mrs. Weasley suddenly jerked in her seat, staring off to where Harry had been a second ago.

“Dear me, I’ve got to head off!” She squeaked, pulling at her husbands’ arm. Hermione tweaked her eyebrow, and so did the rest of the Weasleys.

“Mum?” Ginny asked, her face furrowed.

Mrs. Weasley jerked around, grabbing her skirts and pulling them upwards, her face one of panic – like she left her keys in the house.

“It’s nothing dear, just some Ministry business,” Mrs. Weasley fanned, clutching her husband’s arm as she tried to pull him up from his chair, “and speaking of which, if you kids could stick around with Fred and George in the joke shop until we send for you, that would be peachy.”

Hermione looked over at Ron and Harry, whose mouths were opened slightly. But no one protested, and with the sudden pop of the Weasley parents, the table was quiet again.

“What the hell was that about?” Ginny asked, twisting her wand around her fingers.

 

XxX

 

Tom fiddled with his fingers, which was very unlike him. He was never anxious; always confident, and there had never been an exception to the rule. Until now.

His pristinely combed hair seemed untamed, and his buttoned shirt slightly more wrinkled. He pulled at it, brushing the folds out, and straightening the legs of his trousers.

“Leave it be,” Dumbledore chuckled, and Tom glared at him out the corner of his eye, “it makes you look human. Besides, the Weasley’s don’t care much about appearances.”

Tom quirked his eyebrow and took a small glance out the ‘house’ behind him.

“Apparently.”

Dumbledore’s beard ruffled as his mouth twisted into what seemed a nostalgic sort of smile.

 “The Weasley’s are nice people, Tom. And pureblood, if that’s a worry to you.”

Tom scrunched his nose. Pureblood yes, but also blood traitors – according to his fellow housemates.

Well, he _said_ fellow. A lot of them were probably senile, dead, or dying. Only Tom was left, which in a way, was all he ever asked for. But immortality was having your memories, which Tom had scarce yet to unpick.

“Ah, here they are,” Dumbledore said, standing straight. Tom followed suit, and although he was lean and tall, Dumbledore was a giant of a man. Tom would always look small next to him, no matter what. He hated that.

He looked forwards, regaining himself, and gazed at the sight of the two redheads lumbering up the hill towards them.

A small plump woman, her skirts mismatched and patchy and her hair short and curled behind her ears. Even from a distance, she could see her dimples, and smile lines. The man next to her was tall, taller than him, with short red hair spotted with grey and rectangular glasses seated on his hooked nose. He too looked a rather chipper fellow, although, neither of them were smiling.

The woman remembered her manners as she got closer though, lighting her face up with a smile like a smoke end.

Tom placed a small one on his face too, and prayed it looked natural. Last he needed was two upset Weasley’s and Dumbledore watching him even closer.

“Molly, Arthur, good to see you,” Dumbledore greeted, holding his hand out. Both took it one after the other, staring at Tom warily out of the corner of their eyes.

“I would like to introduce you to Mister Tom Riddle.”

Both of the reds turned to him, and the woman smiled with her eyes at him. She seemed kind enough; motherly! he’d even say, if he knew what a mother was supposed to be. Certainly not a rapist, or a squib. Certainly not his mother.

“I-its nice to meet you Tom,” she – Molly – said, holding out her arm to him too. Tom took it, and shook it.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you too,” he answered back, and didn’t find himself gagging the words. He oddly meant it – somehow.

She stepped back, and allowed her husband to take his hand. He didn’t.

“I have to say, you aren’t what I imagined at all,” Molly marveled, taking him in.

Suddenly he felt self-conscious.

“Thank you,” he decided on saying, with a boyish smirk playing on his lips. Manners could only go so far. Sometimes charm was better, even if he didn’t actually want the person to fall for him. And he definitely didn’t wanted Molly to fall for him.

“Do you want to come in,” Mr. Weasley said, gesturing towards the house. Tom turned, and followed them into the Weasley household.

He was not prepared for what was inside. The house was like a patchwork cabin, one stacked right on top of the other.

The first floor was crowded, chairs upon tables upon chairs. Magic was woven, integrated into the house at every nook and cranny. The pots were cleaning themselves, and the rug was being swept by what seemed like nothing, until you looked down and saw the duster flying across the floor. He never thought he’d like it, but as he felt the warmth of the familial love spread across his chest, he decided that he wouldn’t mind staying here. There were worse homes, after all, many of them being the large and extravagant manor houses.

Tom wasn’t used to magic, especially in homes. And after being at Hogwarts for five years, he thought that he was used to magic. But constantly he felt himself awed over and over again, by the strangest most minute things that most wizards would see as normal; an everyday occurrence. One of the many costs to being raised in the muggle world. He was eleven years behind everyone else: he’d never see it all.

“I think Tom likes the house, Molly,” Dumbledore chuckled, and Tom snapped his mouth shut. He wasn’t even aware it was open.

Mrs. Weasley smiled to herself, “do you want a drink?”

“I would love a tea,” Dumbledore smiled, and the woman walked off to boil her kettle. Or perhaps, to collect the hot water, since it wouldn’t be impossible for the kettle to boil itself.

The three men stood in silence, the various clangs and bangs the only noise to break up the awkwardness.

“I’ll go help her,” Tom said, and started towards Mrs. Weasley, but felt a hand grip his arm suddenly and brashly.

“You’re not going anywhere,” Mr. Weasley said, growling almost, and Tom was taken aback. Why-

Oh.

“I’m not Voldemort, Mr. Weasley,” Tom stated coldly, his own blue eyes burning into the redheads, “not yet.”

The threat hung loose in the air, and the flinch at the sound of his pseudonym didn’t go unnoticed. Dumbledore didn’t even flinch, the old coot.

“Arthur, are you sure that you want to take him in?” Dumbledore asked, placing a hand on the elder’s shoulder.

Mr. Weasley’s eyes stared into his, their hue softening slightly.

“Y-yes I’m sure,” the man said, “I don’t know what came over me.”

“It’s understandable,” Dumbledore said in response, a knowing look on his face.

Tom lowered his head, “is it?”

Both men looked at him.

“Here you go,” Molly said, levitating a steaming cup towards his old teacher.

“Thank you, Molly.”

XxX

 

“What do you think is going on with the Ministry?” Harry asked, stocking the shelves at the Weasley twin’s joke shop. They had naturally been stuck with shelving duty – the one job the twins despised – and weren’t making decent progress.

Ron looked over at him.

“I don’t know, Dad hasn’t said anything,” he answered, wrestling with a rather large box of puking pasties. The tape was biting back at him.

“They were both rather quiet,” Luna said from behind Harry: he jumped, obviously. Sometimes you could hear her coming, the hums under her breath and the heaviness of her boots telling – but other times Harry swore she was related to dementors. She seemed to take pleasure in scaring him.

“Do you think it has something to do with what they aren’t telling you, Harry?” She said, stroking the tape on Ron’s box, which started to purr.

Harry stepped back slightly. He needed to learn not to underestimate Luna – she wasn’t dumb. She was easily as smart as Hermione, although her general aloof demeanor tended to overshadow that.

“It could be,” Ron said, “Dad’s really good at keeping secrets. He managed to convince me that Fred and George were one person when I was younger.”

Harry snorted, just as one of the twins wacked him upside the head.

“Less talk, more work,” Fred said, his brother materializing besides him.

“We’re not your slaves,” Ron grumbled, and George hit him too.

“Course you are. That’s what family’s for; hard labour.”

Hermione came over to them, her arms free of boxes.

“How come you’ve finished then?” Ron complained, and Hermione shrugged innocently.

“I have a good work ethic,” she answered, resting against the bannister of the staircase.

“Well come on, you can help us then,” Ron rebutted, dodging another swing of George, and falling right into the outstretched palm of Fred.

“What was that for! I thought you said family had to labour,” Ron said, rubbing the back of hid red(der) neck.

“’Mione’s not family. Got to tie the knot first, Ronnie,” Ginny teased, appearing besides Hermione, who blushed deeply. Ron did too, his freckles merging into the growing scarlet that crept up his neck.

“We’re not- I, I’m not-” Ron stuttered, and they all laughed.

“Hey, Fred, any idea why we can’t go home yet?” Ginny asked, tucking her wand behind her ear.

Fred stuck his lip out – pondering (supposedly). He tapped his chin for effect, looking around at his brother, who joined in the antics.

“Vague idea,” he said.

“But we can’t tell you.”

“Ministry promise and all.”

Harry eyed the twins, who despite keeping a large and potentially dangerous secret, were grinning to the tips of their ginger hair.

“Well, I mean, we could tell you,” Fred said, his hands crossed conspicuously over his chest.

“But where’s the fun in that?” George teased, snaking his arm round his brothers shoulders as they both sauntered away. Seconds later, they’d disappeared into the crowd.

“Something’s up,” Ginny said, and everyone turned to her.

“What do you mean?” Ron said, hefting the boxes onto the shelves, “Fred and George teasing us seems pretty normal.”

Harry had to admit, the twins were usually pranking and teasing them. But something didn’t seem right.

“Since when did Fred and George care about authority?” Ginny wondered, and the questioning faces turned slack as everyone fought for an answer.

“I mean, they would have jumped at the chance to snitch to Harry – they love mischief. But even they seemed to realize the gravity of the situation, whatever it may be.”

Harry stared at his feet, his glasses slipping down his nose; he didn’t care. Ginny was right, whatever secret they were keeping was bigger than they thought. And it seemed that everyone around him knew what it was.

Harry reached down, grabbed a Skiving Snack box, and shoved it aggressively into the allocated cubby hole.

“Harry?” Hermione asked, her face beaded with concern. Harry pursed his lips, and turned to her.

“We’re going to the burrow,” he growled, “and we are going to find out what the hell is going on.”


	5. Chapter 5

Things had settled down – thank God – at the Weasley residence, the Weasley mater bustling around and popping in and out of conversations. The Weasley pater was holding decent conversation with Dumbledore, and for once, Tom wasn’t too bothered with being left out.

Every time _he_ came up as a topic though, it was clear that the Weasleys had many questions, but Dumbledore shut anything down quickly. Tom gritted his teeth; that meant he’d have to answer them later on. Dumbledore was a human omission, and most of the time he’d do this in the most important of times. Tom couldn’t say he enjoyed it, but then again, he despised the man. There wasn’t many people he could say he truly _hated_ , but Dumbledore was most certainly up there.

However, despite this, the Weasleys were starting to see that he wasn’t the evil dictator they thought he was – yet. Molly Weasley smiled at him every once in a while, and the glint of fear was starting to disappear from her eyes.

Not that Tom minded the odd sparkle of fear, but he figured in this sense, there was always going to be something.

And the family was rather interesting, too. Similar to the Weasley’s of old – or of 50 years ago – these had many children, seven to be exact. One was Tom’s age, and the others older, spare one – a girl. When Tom had politely brought her up (he was always interested in the black sheep), Mr. Weasley had frozen and quickly changed the conversation, much to Tom’s interest. It was quite funny, really. In an attempt to avoid answering the question, people usually gave him more information than he would have originally gotten.

So, he deduced, he had something to do with the Weasley girl Ginevra. Perhaps he had tortured her, or even killed her – although that would be improbable, due to her hand ticking away on the family clock. He guessed that he could have done something when he were older; when he were Voldemort, but that was unlikely due to the fact that the Weasley’s seemed to have a trigger. Him, and Ginny.

They were cold to him before, and even though they eventually thawed, the topic of their youngest child was an icy one. And once or twice he had caught the usually polite and hearty Molly Weasley glaring at him with fear and malice.

 So, he had most likely done something whilst still resembling a human – although from what he’s heard, the time gap for that isn’t too good. And, considering Ginevra was born in 1981, nearly sixty years after his own birth, the odds are that she couldn’t have met him like he is in her current timeline. She either time travelled – unlikely, or somehow Tom met her here, in the present day.

“Tom?” The soft voice of Dumbledore queried, and as Tom looked up, he saw the dark atmosphere that had settled on the room. Clearly something unsavory had happened whilst he had been theorizing. That often happened, and oftentimes, he’d done something without even realizing it. Tom wondered if that was the case now.

“Yes, Professor?” Tom preened, charming his way into the man’s steely eyes – which were as dammed as they were before.

“You were speaking to yourself Tom,” Dumbledore stated, and Tom frowned slightly.

“Oh, I’m sorry- “

“You were speaking to yourself in Parseltongue.”

Oh.

Tom turned to the two redheads, who were staring in shock and anticipation at him and Dumbledore. He smiled at them.

“I didn’t even realize, I’m sorry,” Tom apologized, carefully monitoring the colour that started to drain back into the Weasley mater’s face. But neither of them moved.

“Forgive me for asking but, why is my speaking of Parseltongue a problem?” Tom queried, unable to hide his inquisitive nature anymore. He was only human after all – no matter how bothersome that had proved to be.

The two Weasley’s glanced at each other, before Arthur Weasley placed his hand comfortingly on his wife’s knee.

Molly Weasley swallowed.

“The basilisk… talked in Parseltongue,” she whispered, tears starting to fill her eyes.

Tom hunched forwards, forgetting himself.

“How did you know about the basilisk?” He asked, a bit too loudly and a bit too sudden. Mrs. Weasley recoiled, before seeing the childlike wonder on his face and straightening herself slightly.

“We had an ordeal- “

“Mum!” Someone yelled from outside the house.

Heavy footsteps approached the front door, and as he began to rise; to leave, Dumbledore sat him back down.

“They need to know,” he warned, and Tom hoped that the glare he sent him wasn’t missed by his senility.

Although Tom was excited in a way. Dumbledore had definitely warned the Weasley’s of him before they’d come – of his quirks and abilities and deceptive techniques. For people that had been amidst a war with him for years, they had been rather nice to him. Too nice, considering their circumstances.

If Tom was in their shoes, he’d already have killed himself as he came through the door. Then perhaps knocked out Dumbledore for good measure.

Suddenly, the door swung open, and a plethora of children – Weasleys, by their red hair – jostled in, led by a boy with a scar running down the right side of his face.

And then the boy stopped, and his wand was out, pointing directly between Tom’s eyes.

The room froze – the Weasley’s obviously looked up to this boy – and stared at the scarred boy in anticipation.

“Professor, what is he doing here?” the boy growled, although it was more of a statement, addressing the very obvious elephant – or snake – in the room.

“Harry,” Dumbledore started, but he was cut off.

“ **What is he doing here?”** The boy shouted, tears filling his eyes with rage. Tom was slightly taken aback, which was unlike him, and he had to say he was impressed. Not many people managed to intimidate Tom Riddle, but this five-foot-five, mess of a teenager was trying his gosh darn-est – and succeeding.

“Harry,” a girl spoke softly, and as Tom shifted his gaze slightly, he saw that it was the same chocolate skinned girl from Ollivaders, “who is he?”

The boy – Harry – seemed to take no mind and kept his emerald stare snapped tight onto Tom’s relaxed blue orbs.

“You know, I was confused when my scar started to sting whilst in Diagon Alley,” Harry laughed coldly, a sound which Tom could tell was alien on the boy’s lips, despite never meeting him, “but I figured it was just a nostalgic memory.”

The girl whom Tom had previously met gasped, and clapped her hands over her mouth. No-one else seemed to realize, but one boy did put his hand on the girl’s shoulder.

“And when I thought I saw Dumbledore there, when I thought I saw _you_ , I snapped myself out of it and told myself I was crazy, but I’m not crazy.” The boy spat, “you are. You and your whole crew of death eaters.”

Death eaters. That was a stupid name.

“Harry, that’s enough,” Dumbledore said sternly, but Harry shook his head. It was obvious he was loyal to the man – unfortunately – and so saying ‘no’ to him seemed to be harder than it should have been. Despite that, however, Dumbledore looked rather taken aback by the boy’s actions.

On the other hand, it was clear Harry wasn’t going to stop.

Tom straightened his back.

“What’s your name?” He asked softly, although he already knew it. Sometimes innocence and naivety were the right cards to play.

The boy didn’t falter, although something in his eyes changed; flickered, before settling back into their stormy preface.

“You know bloody well what my name is, _Voldemort_ ,” the boy spat once more, and Tom flinched away at the sound of his own chosen name. It seemed so foreign to him now, so… so _repulsive_.

“My name is Tom,” he corrected, walking slightly closer to the boy. He was thankful the Weasley parents hadn’t stepped in. That would just be messy.

The boy stood his ground, although he looked like he wanted to back away. Courageous. Blunt.

Gryffindor?

However, he did frown slightly, as though him saying his own name was confusing to Harry. Tom understood, he had wanted to get rid of his filthy muggle name for as long as he had had it. However now, it provided solace. He was quite fond of it, as names go. It may not have been the first of it’s kind, but he was the first Tom _Marvolo_ Riddle to ever walk the earth. There was power in that.

“What’s your name?” Tom asked, trying to not sound patronizing. The boy may be small; scrawny, but his eyes were streaked with battle scars and painted with splatters of blood. He was also probably the same age as Tom.

“Harry,” the boy muttered, tightening his grip on his wand.

“Harry,” Tom repeated. He straightened his back and played his boyish charm again, holding out his hand to the tip of Harry’s wand.

“It’s very nice to meet you.”

Harry didn’t extend his arm, but he stared warily at Tom’s fingertips.

Tom did have to say, he was impressed. Most Gryffindors would have kept the argument going for hours, not backing down. However much this Harry despised him, he knew when to quiet down and wait. The hatred in his eyes was as prevalent as before, and had even silenced Dumbledore, but Tom had confused him so much that he had silenced himself.

Not the method Tom usually went for, but hey! it worked.

Extending his smile, making it wonky and playful, he reached out and shook Harry’s wand with a jovial sort of mischief about him.

The mood lightened slightly.

“Tom if you would excuse us, I would like to talk to the children and explain,” Dumbledore said, clearing his throat.

Tom straightened himself, releasing the weapon and nodding at the clan of redheads.

Then he turned, not looking back, and started his climb up the many flights of stairs.

XxX

 

“Harry, let me explain,” Dumbledore started, and Harry bristled; Hermione could see his walls coming up higher than before. She couldn’t even see his head.

“When Voldemort passed through the veil,” – cue the many flinches, despite them being in the presence of Voldemort not one minute ago – “he died. But Tom Riddle is very much alive.”

Harry frowned, putting his wand back in his pocket as he went to sit down on one of the seats. The white of his face proved to be faintness as he stumbled on his way, tripping over his own lagging legs.

Hermione joined him, feeling rather sick herself.

“The horcrux split Tom into pieces – into Voldemort. Voldemort had so little a soul left that he became inhuman, therefore relinquishing his title as Tom Riddle. So, when he passed through the veil, the human trapped inside him from all those years ago could escape.”

Dumbledore pursed his lips, and looked quizzically into Harry’s glazed eyes.

“When he woke in St. Mungo’s, Tom thought it was still 1943. He still thinks he’s 16, he _is_ 16\. It wouldn’t be fair to kill him. We can make him better.”

Hermione guessed Dumbledore’s logic stood, although she was having a hard time believing him due to personal reasons. Tom Riddle was Voldemort, and Voldemort had done countless horrible things.

Hermione felt Ron’s hand brush hers, and she blushed slightly, completely forgetting the situation at hand. She pulled her arms up over her chest, and tried not to notice Ron’s hurt face as she did so.

It didn’t go missed.

“He’s no better than Voldemort,” Harry argued, snapping Hermione out of her thoughts, “he grows up to be the most dangerous wizard ever, and you want to bottle feed him better?”

Hermione sucked in her breath at the hostile look that flashed momentarily through Dumbledore’s eyes, and if she didn’t know better, she would say that it was aimed at Harry.

Although…

Did she know Dumbledore? Truly? Apart from being a man of mystery and swooping in to save the day after it had already been saved, Dumbledore hadn’t ever done anything to help them. If anything, his games and ploys had made their lives harder.

“Any one of us in this room have the possibility to grow up to be better,” someone said, and Hermione was surprised to find Fred with his face solemn and his brother as shocked as she was, “I say we give the kid a shot.”

Without warning, Ginny slammed her foot down and stormed out the door, the rattle of the hinges as it slammed causing the anger to revitalize in the room.

“Fred,” Mr. Weasley warned, speaking his first word in the whole ordeal. Now that Hermione thought about it, Ron’s parents hadn’t said anything this entire time.

In fact, why was Riddle here in the first place?  


George looked at his father, then at his brother, before hooking his arm around Fred.

With a half hearted smile on his face, he laughed. “I mean, he doesn’t look like a penis with legs yet, so he can’t be all bad.”

The small smiles his antics caused were just that; small, but broke up the hostility with some well needed humour.

“Why was he here, though?” Hermione asked, and although her voice was loud, it still felt like it drowned in the atmosphere of the room, “Riddle, I mean.”

Dumbledore sighed and shared a brief glance with Mr. and Mrs. Weasley. They nodded at him, and Mr. Weasley placed his arm around his wife’s shoulders, her face taught with worry and at the same time; love.

Dumbledore sighed through his nose and turned back to them.

“Arthur and Molly have agreed to house Mr. Riddle during the time he’s not at Hogwarts.”

And with that, the fighting broke out again.

XxX

 

Nothing went unmissed by Tom. No matter how high up one goes, sound travels. And he had to say, it had been a while since so many people had hated him this much.

He stood, leaning lightly on the banister of the third floor. Although he rarely showed it, Tom was scared. Scared that Dumbledore would change his mind, scared that he would take Tom to get…

To get killed.

He closed his eyes at the thought, squeezing them hard as if to make the idea disappear into the crevices of his brain.

His hair had fallen out of place from stress, the meticulously placed strands fluffy and hanging loosely. His instinct told him to fix it – to look his best, but it didn’t seem that in this new age people seemed to care much about appearances. Although, he wasn’t in the Black’s house, or the Malfoy’s, and so it seemed that the regulations were much more relaxed than they should have been in a _true_ pureblood household.

Not that true pureblood households were the pinnacle of familial scenes – most of them were incestual and abusive, with their kids going to Hogwarts and being just as discriminative.

Not that Tom could talk.

Truth was, he didn’t hate muggles. He didn’t hate muggle-borns. But he was a half blood, with a fully muggle father whom he didn’t even know.

If a muggle wouldn’t even accept Tom, what did that say about him?

Well, the purebloods of Hogwarts certainly had ideas, and they were certainly vocal about them to the point that Tom was forced to adopt certain ideals.

Did he believe that wizards were superior to muggles? Sure.

But did he believe that they should be prosecuted for what they were born as? Not so much.

Survival caused him to change, caused him to adapt, and caused him to act like the bullies he so hated in order to fit in. In order to be inconspicuous, and gain trust.

And then there was the Chamber.

And then there was Myrtle.

Tom wiped his face with his hand, burying his nose in his fingers as he breathed out his worries into them.

“Oh God,” he whispered, despising the obvious emotion that flowed through his words.

“Tom?” Came a small voice from besides him. Tom looked up, his face still red from the release of small tears (despicable), and smiled at Hermione Granger, her eyes wide and stature unsure.

“Hermione, right?” He said, holding out his hand to her, the other positioned respectively behind his back.

Unlike Harry, she took it and despite her nerves, she had a strong grip.

Hermione let his hand go, and it flopped to his side without any energy.

“Are you okay?” She asked, pulling a strand of hair behind her ear. If Tom had been more alert, he would have noted that this certainly meant she was attracted to him, and may store it away for future uses.

But he was tired, and he needed a crutch.

He pointed weakly to the open room besides them, and followed the shorter girl into it, pulling the door too quietly as not to disrupt the pleasant argument downstairs.

“What’s wrong?” She asked, standing with her arms crossed. Tom gulped.

He could lie. He could say nothing, or make up an elaborate tale. But as he said, he needed a crutch, and Hermione was as good as any.

So, Tom took a sigh, and sat down on the bed – the oranges and reds around him causing his headache to worsen. He looked at Hermione.

“I’ve been pulled out of time, and told that I’m going to turn into the worst wizard of all time, and the only people that seem to be able to help me are all fighting about how horrible I am,” Tom said, and to be truthful, it felt like he was just getting started.

“I’m expected to be horrible, and people hate me for things I haven’t even done yet.”

Tom looked down at the floor, swallowing his tears and straightening his back in an attempt to appear somewhat collected.

“Don’t,” Hermione whispered, hesitantly placing her hand on his arm, and flinching away at the touch that she herself inflicted.

“Don’t what?” Tom smiled, charming again. He needed her to like him; he needed her to think he was okay.

“Don’t do that,” Hermione said, gesturing around him, “don’t hide your emotions. It’s not healthy.”

Tom looked at her, and saw truly how scared she was.

He was Voldemort to her, and she was still trying to help.

“Why are you trying to help me, Hermione?” Tom asked, quite coldly, which wasn’t fair. Hermione shrunk away.

“When I met you at Ollivander’s I’d already figured out who you were,” she admitted, and Tom jumped back this time, surprised at her intelligence.

“There is no Thomas Peverell, but the Gaunt family relates distantly back to the Peverells. And there is a Tom who is a Gaunt.”

Tom smiled slightly, unaware of his actions.

“Impressive,” he smirked, and she smiled coyly at him. He didn’t suppose she was shy usually, but being around him tended to do things to people.

Different things now though, since people relate him less to being attractive and more to being Lord Voldemort.

Hermione took a breath. She wasn’t done.

“When I met you the first time, I saw the person behind the charm. And he was scared, and vulnerable, and _human._ ”

Tom glowered.

“You say that like it’s a good thing,” he muttered, fiddling with his thumbs in a showcase of his disgusting mortality and anxiety.

“It is,” she explained, and Tom scoffed away her explanation.

Hermione shifted on the bed, the covers ruffling up.

“Look Tom, I don’t know you, and at the moment all I can think of is You Know Who” – Tom supposed she meant Voldemort – “but I can’t hold that against you. If you try to change, I do think you can be a good guy. And I do think we can be friends.”

Tom smiled at her as she lifted herself from the bed, heading to the door.

“But Tom?” Hermione said, her voice gone dark.

He lifted his head, frowning.

“You double cross any of us, and I won’t deliver you to the ministry.” She turned around to look at him.

“I’ll kill you myself.”


	6. Chapter 6

Terribly eldritch. A whitened face scarred by dark magic. His soul ripped apart, its tendrils gripping to the smallest faint of humanity, as he forced it into an epiphany of horror, and of utmost desperation. Deep set red upon high bones, cheeks sunken in and veins that run like track lines across his scalp.

He smiled, wide, a grin that could only be called one in the loosest of contexts, his cracked lips thin and haunting as his serpentine tongue ran through his stained maw.

“You’re mine, Harry Potter,” he hissed, voice barely human, resonating through Harry’s head and scar like a drumbeat – without the same sense of finality.

Harry looked up; green eyes set on blue. High cheekbones, skin pale and slightly freckled. Wavy, dark hair swept meticulously to the side. He mocked innocence, his eyes large and childlike, but yet at the same time pooling and intense.

He leant in further.

“You’ll never escape me.”

XxX

                   

The floor was hard: splintered, and the sleeping bag was far too small for any living person. It was thin, and ripped, and worn through by bugs and age. Tom pulled the fabric further up over his midriff as it rode down, and closed his eyes against the violent colours of the front room. The clock – loud as it was – provided a monotonous base for Tom to think against, the constant ticking a pacemaker for his brain. Long, heaving breaths emerged - one after the other - as Tom settled into his thoughts. And what disturbed thought they were.

Screaming splatters of blood that flung across tabletops as Tom cradled his nose; broken. He had been only four, and too young to truly grasp the depths of manipulation, and so paid the price.

Noisy whips that echoed throughout the anorexic orphanage walls, and winces of knowing that mirrored the cracks. Tom would await them, and await the punishments.

‘But I never did that!’ he would lie, and they would hit him. It wasn’t him who killed the rabbit, even though it was, and they would lash him. It wasn’t him who tormented and bullied the children into submission, even though it was.

They would stare at him in horror.

They would threaten him with the doctor.

‘There’s something not right with that boy, madam, not right at all.’

The dreaded doctor, although at that age, Tom had never truly understood what the doctor was. He was never ill nor sick, and so the doctor only came for the yearly visits to the orphanage. Check he wasn’t dead. He would ignore the scars.

‘The way he looks at me sometimes, I could swear he knows…’

And Tom always knew, no matter what it was or the troubled soul who owned the secret: he always found out.

He shifted in his sheets, turning over, the harsh floor starkly cold against his cheek. His gaze wandered up to the clock, which despite its name, didn’t actually tell the time.

Despite the long and winded tales that Dumbledore had spun, Tom wasn’t as stuck up as he seemed. He appreciated the Weasley’s willingness to take him in – knowing the circumstances – and was grateful for the place to sleep. He was begrudgingly thankful to Dumbledore for saving him from Azkaban, however, he was sure the man had some ulterior motive.

That’s what he would do, of course.

However, these people, they were against him. He wasn’t Voldemort, but still he was, at least in their minds. They saw the snake in the tree rather than the human, and Tom was susceptible to forgetting that. Politeness and charm would get him only so far, since the Weasley’s had nothing much more to offer him, and he needed to get back to his own people. But his people, the easily manipulated; the sheep, were already Voldemort’s flock. They wouldn’t gather under a 16 year old man; boy, who not only was out of time, but also out of touch. He had no idea how the modern world worked, and he had no connections that he could grasp without Voldemort catching wind of the situation.

Nevertheless, Tom saw potential allies amongst the Weasleys. Hermione, who was not actually a Weasley, was one, and had been particularly kind to him despite his future actions. He suspected a Ravenclaw nature, since she was rational and collected, however, her threat – if one could call it that – made him guess Gryffindor, which was a shame. They were so impulsive, and chivalrous. He had no business with martyrs. But nonetheless, she was an option. Not easily lead, but smart, and tactful. He could work with that.

Next was the Weasley girl – Ginny, he believed. Her utter hatred of him was possibly deep set in betrayal, due to the emotional source of her anger. Knowing his past actions, he would have to guess that the emotional manipulation he had pulled was one of a romantic nature – however, this made no sense, as he was quite a lot older than her. Perhaps some communication device, or a time turner?  Regardless, her turmoil provided a good base. She had once trusted him, and unlike Slytherins, Gryffindors trusted easily, and her blatant; brash anger led him to believe she was one.

Finally, perhaps the Chosen One himself would provide as a good tool for success. Famous, well connected, and again: he despised Tom. If he could twist Harry Potter to like him, then perhaps he could regain some of his own status again. Then again, there was still the matter of his future self. Maybe by defeating him could he earn Harry’s trust, and in addition, gain a lot of his old contacts – assuming they were still alive.

And who knows, maybe he could actually do better here. Spreading his bases was always advised, and Gryffindors were about as far from his old acquaintances as Tom could get. Not to mention magic must have progressed. Perhaps he could gain immortality another way?

And, if all went wrong, he could always join Voldemort and work his way up the forces there.

Win-win.

 

XxX

 

“Did that actually happen, or was I dreaming?” Ron’s gruff voice sounded as he ruffled under his covers.

Harry closed his eyes to battle the oncoming headache.

“Yep.”

Groan.

“What time did you all go to bed?” Harry asked, vaguely aware of the sun rising behind the blinds, and the heat on his head. He had gone to bed early, to avoid the noise, and him.

“Quite late,” Ron answered, yawning amidst the sentence, “We were all angry, but Ginny kept arguing, so Mum sent us all up. She was quite scary. If she wasn’t shouting at You-Know-Who, I’d actually feel quite sorry for the guy.”

“Hmm,” Harry agreed, pulling his forearm up over his forehead to avoid the sunlight knocking at his door and telling him to GET UP!!!

“I still can’t believe You-Know-Who’s staying at our house,” Ron breathed, “I mean, he’s not, really, is he?”

Harry snorted. “He’s already got a body count of 4.”

“Bloody hell,” Ron swore in both amazement and fear, “Why the hell did Mum agree to this?”

“Why don’t you ask her, I’m sure that would go down well,” a voice noted.

Ron grappled for a shirt.

“’Mione, geez!” He yelped, and Harry opened his eyes to see Hermione in the doorway, arms crossed, already dressed.

“Honestly Ronald,” Hermione sighed, exasperated, shaking her head, “and to answer your question, your mother agreed to it because she feels sorry for him. No home, orphaned, out of time.”

“So, she fell for his act,” Harry grumbled, pulling a shirt over his head.

“No Harry,” Hermione deadpanned, “I truly do believe he’s orphaned.”

“Funny,” he murmured, stuffing his wand into his trousers.

“Where’d he sleep, then?” Ron asked, his finger wriggling around in Pigwidgeon’s cage as the miniscule owl hooted excitedly for his breakfast.

“Downstairs,” Hermione answered.

Her expression turned serious. “Which actually reminds me. You’re the first up. Be civil, please. Your mum is cooking breakfast downstairs and last I checked, Tom was feeding the chickens. No drama this morning.”

And with that, she turned, and headed on down the corridor.

“Blimey,” Ron gaped, teeth pulling at a pumpkin pasty – which he wasn’t supposed to have – and fiddling with the lock on Pig’s cage.

Harry nodded, preparing for the massacre downstairs.

“Blimey.”

XxX

 

Tom liked chickens, quite a lot. Their simplicity and idiocy produced such a profound childlike joy within him that he couldn’t quite turn away. Squatted down close to the ground on his toes, Tom couldn’t help but smile at their small clucks and tiny heads. His head cocked as one started to eat the seed he had left out, and in the same childlike way, he held his hand out and allowed it to flow through their feathers.

The whole scene itself was rather utopian in a way. The sun was shining over the hills at the burrow, like a wide smile, and the each of blade of grass was lit with the same flame that erupted from its face. Tom himself was rather pale and was feeling the heat begin to burn up his skin from the prolonged exposure, but he didn’t care. It was quite a sight to behold when Tom didn’t care; it was quite rare.

Even though it was late August, the temperature wasn’t too hot, and was completely bearable in his long trousers and shirt. It was a miracle that it wasn’t raining, or snowing, or hailing.

To be fair, the weather in England was quite hard to predict anyway, so it wasn’t much of a feat.

Tom himself had always been more of a fan of winter, perhaps due to the fact that he was born in the darkness of December, but most likely because he preferred the cold prickling his skin to the slow boil of the sun.

You could always layer with cold. But there were only so many layers that could be removed for the heat.

However, back to the point, Tom had to digress this was nice. And if he ignored the repugnant yelling and engrossed himself in his chickens, he could almost believe it too.

As the yelling got louder, it was clear to Tom why Mrs. Weasley had sent him outside. However, he wasn’t sure if it was too calm her children, or if it was to not provoke Tom. Can’t poke the bear if the bear is far, far away.

Oh, how they all wished that he was far away. Tom could tell. And it stung, somewhere in the cold pit of his chest people hesitated to call a heart. It stung.

But not enough, apparently, to be noticeable.

“Tom!” Mrs Weasley shouted to him from the downstairs window, “have you fed the chickens?”

He nodded. He certainly wasn’t going to shout back.

She beckoned him in response, and with one last farewell look to his chickens, he got up on his aching legs to make his way inside.

 

XxX

 

“How were the chickens dear, I hope they were well behaved?” Mrs. Weasley asked, distracted, as he opened the door.

He smiled at her, even though she couldn’t see him, which was odd.

“I can assure you they were on their best behaviour,” he said, almost teasingly, and hoped it wasn’t taken as mockery.

It wasn’t, thank Merlin.

“That’s good then,” she added absent-mindedly, and gestured towards the table, “foods on the table dear.”

Tom scoured the scene. Mr Weasley, eating. Ginny Weasley was nowhere to be found, thank goodness. He didn’t want to deal with that just yet.

From the noise radiating through the house, it was clear that the table wasn’t going to be empty soon. Many pairs of feet pounded against the wooden floors and shook wooden doors, sending puffs of smoke through the roof above them, thankfully not onto the food, which looked quite delightful.

It was a large spread of the epitome of an English breakfast. Bacon, eggs, hash brown, sausages. It was all there.

Having lived in war-stricken London for four years, Tom was used to going hungry. He was lucky when he was allowed out with limited chore money to get himself something on his ration card, and a full fried breakfast would have been out of the question.

And although they were still at war, it seemed that Britain nowadays didn’t have the same problem retaining its food supply. For even a poor family such as the Weasley’s could afford a feast.

His thought process was disrupted when Hermione hopped down the stairs, her shoes clacking against the floorboards. _1, 2; 1, 2._

“Hello Hermione,” Mrs. Weasley fawned – it seemed like she was rather fond of the girl – and gestured towards the table again.

“Hello Mrs. Weasley,” Hermione greeted back, and rushed off before the Weasley mater could scold her for not calling her ‘Molly’.

“Hey Tom,” she said in passing, and he nodded back at her.

“Good morning,” he replied back, surveying the table.

It was clear that he couldn’t sit next to Hermione. She was being nice to him already, and she would most likely sit with Ginny, so Tom didn’t want to be near her. However, her level head may calm the youngest carrot down, so perhaps it may be an option.

Across from Hermione would most likely be Harry Potter, and his Weasley friend, since they were all surveyed to be close.

And perhaps the girl that Tom had encountered alongside Hermione in Ollivander’s would sit opposite too.

Deciding on a seat at the other end of the table, Tom sat down, crossing his arms in his lap, head down.

“Hey Mum,” the twins chorused, sitting down quite close to Tom on the table. In fact, one of them was right across from him. Not that that would spell inevitable trouble, but they spouted an air of mischief from them like a water spritzer, and their matching grins made him slightly uneasy.

But hopefully they wouldn’t try to ta-

“Hey Voldie,” One of them smiled, waving at him across the table.

Mrs. Weasley snapped her head up and watched intently; apprehensively.

“I would prefer Tom, if you wouldn’t mind,” he answered, not looking up, fiddling with the edge of the tablecloth with a straight face and straight back.

“Oekie Dokie!” One teased, slapping his brother on the back good naturedly.

God, they were loud.

And intense.

And brash.

And everything was oh so _red._ Their faces, their clothes, their hair, their noses.

Everything.

“I’d be careful guys, you wouldn’t want to end up with your neck slit, would you?” Someone said from behind him, spitting ice in their teasing tone.

“Why I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Tom played along as Harry Potter sat next to him, weaving his words throughout the intricate puzzle of social etiquette, “I would never kill anybody.”

The boy’s eyebrows – untamed, and bushy – creased.

“Your dad, grandparents, _Myrtle-“_

“All tragic accidents. But I believe the culprits were caught, yes? So why the speculation?”

A vein pulsed in the Chosen One’s head, dangerously close to the striking scar that ran jaggedly across half of his face.

“You little sh-“

“However,” Tom cut him off, the profanity hanging in the air, “if I were to kill someone, I would never do it so openly. The _Avada Kedavra_ curse provides a great cover.”

“Didn’t work so well when you tried to kill Harry,” one of the twins added, although the smile was long gone and left to dust.

“Well you know what they say,” Tom smiled, “practice makes perfect.”

He straightened his knife.

“Now,” he grinned, looking down at the boy next to him, venom and warning dripping from his words, “let’s eat, shall we?”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that this chapter (and past ones) might seem like Tom x Hermione, but I assure you that it is not. 
> 
> I also promise wholeheartedly that it isn't going to turn into a love triangle. 
> 
> Tomarry's endgame, I assure you.

Tom was bored.

Utterly, numbingly, bored. He just had nothing to do. Well, he had plenty to do, but talking and interacting with the Weasley’s had been a challenge that he hadn’t particularly wanted to take up in the first place. In fact, talking and communing had been the task that he had been dreading, since he couldn’t use his charm to beguile them; he had to make conversation.

The first time he had tried had been with one of the twins – he had forgotten which one – and ultimately, Tom had never had a less intellectually stimulating conversation in his life. And besides, it wasn’t as if the family was too keen to talk to him either.

The only person Tom was partially interested in striking debate with was the Potter boy – Harry, he remembered. Not because of his reams of knowledge or his fascinating personality, because he was devoid of both of those, but mostly because the boy had somehow managed to defeat Lord Voldemort – him – _twice_! And, going back to the point of his intelligence, it seemed unlikely that it was because of exempt magical skill or astuteness. Perhaps the girl, Hermione, had helped him? But even then…

Nonetheless, Tom was stuck pondering his conversation with the Potter boy only in his mind, because Harry was less than willing to talk to Tom. If anything, he actively avoided him like the plague, and scowled with a face reminiscent of Abraxas Malfoy whenever he walked past.

Intriguingly, the boy also seemed to share a fair amount of luck at dodging Tom’s Legillimency attempts. Notably, though, they were weaker, due to his wand being under lock and key in Dumbledore’s office up at Hogwarts, so perhaps that was why. But still, Harry wasn’t too accomplished at Occlumency, and seemed to push Tom out of his mind on sheer power of anger alone.

Tom pulled himself up out of the grass – his permanent habitat as of late – and stretched above his head, a slim slither of stomach showing before he lowered his arms. ‘Blasted shirt,’ he thought as he flattened the plaid patterned ruffles that adorned his braggadocious, fiery cotton. Tom sighed, pulling the bottom of the shirt out to properly examine its atrocity. Red was _not_ his colour. Matched with the dark waves of his hair – without product: the Weasley’s didn’t own any – and the alabaster complexion of his sharpened face, red seemed to try to compensate for the complete lack of hue that was Tom Riddle. Tried and failed, he added, as he let the fronds drop down in a lacklustre sigh.

At least outside Tom could be alone in his thoughts. He settled himself back down into the swaying grass and calmed them with his hand as they waved excitedly at the clouds, which waved back with a careless effort as they sifted across the blanket of blue that resided so mysteriously above them. Small, callow flowers dotted the tips of green that fluttered in the summer breeze, a last sigh of fresh air before the bite of autumn*. Tom picked at them, twirling a particularly decrepit one in between his fingers, the petals falling like ash to the ground as they spun – purple and pink in between devastating white.

He looked to the sky, his eyes no longer furrowed, and his brow relaxed for the first time in a lifetime. His hair blew casually alongside the grass, as if against his will it wished the sky ‘ _good day!’._ His cheekbones stood stark against the colour behind him, and the shirt hit his chest, revealing how little skin filled out the fabric. Piano notes ran vaguely up his chest and rattled in between gusts of wind as they sung out in prayer for salvation.

Tom crossed his legs – ever the obedient schoolboy – and sighed through his nose, looking down at the crushed grass beneath his bare ankles. He ran his knuckles along the top of them, and they swept his skin like the harsh caress of a ruler on a Sunday morn. They were dead. Tom withdrew his hand, all too familiar of His touch.

Tom looked on, accepting his fate when his nose tickled from the dust of pollen, and sighed in resignation as he rose from his bed of green and headed back to the den of lions before him. The house always interested him, the way its top-heavy design looked to be in desperate need of support, or the way that it not-so-subtly leaned to the left. Tom reached out, pushing the image of the Burrow up with his hand, frowning when he pulled his band back and it was as lopsided as before.

When the image of Mrs Weasley appeared in the doorway to the Burrow, Tom began to walk over, his legs unfurling from underneath him so that he may arrive at the opportune time to be polite.

“Tom!” She yelped with surprise and flattened her apron with urgency as he approached with jaded enthusiasm. The sheer juxtaposition of her reaction jolted him, and suddenly the utopian landscape behind him melded into the puerile London backdrop as he entered the home with newfound speed.

“Ma’am,” he greeted, dipping his head in curtesy at the woman. She flushed – odd, really – and shook her head at him, her lips moving and an array of sounds following. Tom frowned. He should probably pay attention, at least to keep up appearances.

“Ma’am, could you repeat that, I didn’t quite catch it.”

 “Sorry, dear. I said the kids are going out on their brooms. Would you like to join them? We have a spare Cleansweep in the shed,” she repeated, turning away from him.

 “I’m not much a flyer, ma’am,” he admitted, and it was the truth, for once.

Mrs Weasley smiled around at him, holding out a pot dripping with soap suds and water. He graciously moved out of the way.

“Neither is Hermione, dear. Perhaps you could join her? I see that you too get along well?”

Tom was taken aback, he had to admit, but he scarcely showed it in his face.

“Hermione is… a nice girl, ma’am, but I don’t think she likes me all too much.”

The truth was, nobody at the Burrow really liked him. Mrs Weasley tried, bless her heart, to make him included, but it never really worked. He respected her enough – looking after so many Gryffindors must not have been easy – but her flinch at his arrival, or at the mention of his name, was all too telling. They all saw Voldemort, and to be honest, Tom saw him too. Every time he looked in the mirror. And it scared him how little that bothered him.

It seemed Mrs Weasley was treating him like he was neither Tom Riddle, nor Voldemort: some other, completely normal, boy.

“Well, can’t make friends until you try, now can you?” Mrs Weasley scolded, her rhetorical question forcing Tom into a state of silence that he wasn’t used to, and regrettably, she took it as a win, turning her back on him to complete her washing up – without magic, weirdly.

“That’s true,” he said, forcing a smile even though she was turned away from him.

“Legillimens,” Tom whispered, his hand pointed towards Mrs Weasley as he focused on breaking down the barriers of her mind.

A man - obscured by blood – holding a bloodied leg as a snake moved against him, striking repeatedly.

A girl, sobbing, clutching her mother’s – Mrs Weasley’s – arm as she cried, the word ‘diary’ muttered through heaves under her breath.

A boy – his yellow and black uniform stained with death as he stared to the sky with glassy eyes.

“Thomas.”

He was flung from her mind, and forced to regain his balance against the worktop, shocked by the sudden heaviness to the room.

“Yes, ma’am?” He said innocently, pretending not to know what she was talking about, whilst shielding his own mind from her predicted attacks.

But they did not come.

“Go outside with the others, Tom. I’m sure they wouldn’t mind.”

He doubted that was true, but he went anyway, shaken by the sheer power that had radiated from Molly Weasley.

xXx

 

“Nice save Luna!” Hermione hollered from the side as Luna swerved to intercede the Quaffle that had so generously been swing at her from one of the two Weasley twins. Quidditch was not a sport that Hermione had ever imagined Luna playing any part in, but she was proved quite wrong.

Ginny, Fred and George on one side, and Luna, Harry and Ron on the other, but together they landed in unison, looking rather tired but raring for another match.

“That was brilliant! Why did you never try for the team?” Hermione blurted to Luna, who wiped her blonde hair from her eyes.

“There are more important things to worry about, Hermione, than whether one is involved in a sport or not. I would rather cheer from the sides,” Luna informed, in a rare moment of stern wisdom.

And then the boys came rushing over, sweaty and haughty, with a disgruntled Ginny in tow between the two eldest Weasleys.

“We totally beat you!” Ron huffed at his brothers, who were currently trying to pull Ginny into a victory lift onto their shoulders.

“The scores don’t lie, Ickle Ronnikins,” Fred teased, red under the weight of his near adult sister, but grinning, nonetheless.

“Harry totally caught the snitch!” Ron continued, “Hermione tell them!”

Hermione looked up; her face obscured slightly by a long-coiled strand of hair and smiled at her friend.

“Harry dropped the snitch, it didn’t count,” Hermione informed, before looking over her shoulder instinctively as a chill ran down her back.

And appropriately so, considering who was sauntering over to them.

“Not my finest moment,” Harry murmured, caught up amongst the redheads to worry too much at who Hermione was glaring at.

And no one seemed to notice when she got up and met him halfway, a protective plight for her vulnerable friends.

“Hermione,” Tom Riddle greeted, his face slightly lit up by the sun and the small tug of a smile that graced his lips.

“Riddle,” Hermione said, and heaved at the sickening smirk that spread across his face, “what do you want?”

“Now, Miss Granger, I thought we had a connection?” He said, feigning wretched pain at her truthful words.

“All I said was that I understood the feeling of displacement. Doesn’t mean I agree with your prerogative to be a murderous di- “

“Oi, Hermione?” Ron called, turning around to her, but only to scowl instead when he saw who she was so unwillingly talking to.

“What do you want?” He growled, and Tom only shrugged his shoulders, the angered lines on Ron’s face opposed by the sheer relaxed skin of Tom’s.

“Your mother sent me out to socialise, so regrettably, here I am,” he said, and Hermione studied the small flickers of truth that appeared in his eyes with caution.

“Since when do you listen to anyone, Riddle?” Harry called out in surprisingly resigned anger, as if he had buried the whole ordeal under a layer of pain, and despair. Ginny followed close behind him, warily eying the Dark Lord with an uncharacteristic look of fear in her golden orbs.

“I happen to respect Mrs Weasley greatly, and it would pain me so if she were to be disappointed,” Tom played, spinning his web.

“I doubt she would be. She likes to protect her children from harm,” Hermione hissed at the boy, and he looked at her with fake surprise.

“Why would I ever hurt any of you?” He sneered innocently, his Slytherin nature mixing unnaturally with the desired Hufflepuff kindness. But the threat was read loud and clear, by all of them.

“I thought you were better at lying Riddle?” Harry teased, walking beside Hermione and stepping in front of her, an attempt to protect her.

“Aw, how sweet. Yes, Potter, protect the brains of the operation. You’d be dead without her,” Riddle toyed, and Harry brought out his wand, the tip sparking dangerously at Voldemort, but ultimately, was useless.

“Harry,” Hermione warned, reaching on to his arm to gently guide his arm down, “don’t.”

Tom Riddle’s smile was wiped from his face and again, appeared scarily neutral, as he straightened his back and placed his hands behind them, an air of authority radiating from him.

Hermione could understand being afraid of Tom Riddle.

“Well, if you’re out here, you could at least try to be quiet,” she snapped at him, to which she was infuriatingly only returned a devilish smirk, “we’re trying to have fun, not that you’d know what that is, mind you.”

Riddle’s face remained painfully impartial to her comments, and she watched in apprehension as he clicked his jaw in thought.

“Well I’m stuck here, so why not?” He answered, eventually, and Hermione turned to Harry to see his reaction.

There was nothing in his face, but unbridled anger. He seemed to be studying Riddle with the same uneasiness as Hermione, scanning his figure as if waiting for his eyes to bleed red; his skin to run white; his nose to cave into his face.

But naught happened, and Tom Riddle remained Tom Riddle.

“Same teams?” Harry asked suddenly, turning away from Riddle and back to his friends, whom were all still slightly fixated on the young Dark Lord in front of them, with the same barely restrained hate that he himself had shown.

“Uh huh,” Ron answered, his gaze ripping away from Tom and back to Harry, his eyes glassy with cynicism and war.

And so, they left, brooms in hand, leaving Hermione and… _him_ … together.

“It’s all an act with you, isn’t it?” She snapped, turning towards the Janus-faced monster, “it’s all lies.”

“Lies are just someone else’s truth,” Tom answered vaguely, eyes focused behind her, on Harry, as he mounted his broom.

“Leave him alone,” Hermione glowered, “none of us particularly like you here, but he’s the worst of all. You haunt him, Riddle. Just lay off.”

Tom Riddle turned back to her.

She braced herself, for an insult, a curse, laughter. _Something._

“We’re missing the game,” he said, walking over to the unstable bench that stood just behind her.

Hermione’s mouth pressed itself into hard wire, and she brushed back her hair in annoyance.

A curse was predictable. But whatever he was doing, here: now, was not. And it hurt her to not know, to play his game.

xXx

Harry’s eyes remained fogged by the speed of his flying – even on a Cleansweep – and he watched through tainted vision at the other players in front of him. The snitch was nowhere to be seen, and Harry wasn’t exactly in the right mindset to see it anyway.

The mystery of Tom Riddle had plagued him ever since he had walked in on the snake in the Burrow. Not mean, not kind. There was nothing consistent or true about the activities of Tom Riddle; he didn’t have any seeming objective.

Voldemort, however, was easier to figure out. Muggleborns were his born hatred, and power was his initiative. Whoever Harry was fighting, whether it be Death Eaters, or Voldemort himself, were all predictable. They all shared the motives of the beast himself, and therefore had constant motives.

In a sad way, the only reliability Harry had ever had in his life would be that Voldemort was out to get him.

But Tom Riddle wasn’t just another head off the hydra. He was the main villain in their story.

And he didn’t play by the same set of rules that Voldemort did. No, he was another adversary altogether: unpredictable.

And that made him all the more deadly.

His _charm._ His _smiles._ His _mannerisms._ None of them were shared with his future counterpart.

Tom Riddle was human, mostly, and yet he posed a much bigger threat than Voldemort ever did.

Because with Tom Riddle, no one ever saw. His eyes were masked with a cold overlay of blue, the paleness of his face complimented by the rogue attractiveness of his featured, rather than adding to the devastating, sunken mirage of the future.

Tom Riddle was an adversary that worked at night and played the hero when the light shone throughout the day. No one ever suspected the good orphan, Tom Riddle.

But Harry knew.

And as he played, the object of his frustrations came into view multiple times, and Harry had to restrain himself from screaming. 

Tom Riddle was a monster. 

And he was going to stop him. 

Whatever it took.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Autumn is the English name for Fall (I say English because I am English, so apologies if any other countries call it this - I can't include you all!)


	8. Chapter 8

_“Carry on my wayward son_

_There’ll be peace when you are done_

_Lay your weary head to rest_

_Don’t you cry no more.”_

Harry’s head was killing him. Streaks of pain barrelled through his forehead like a herd of centaurs, and his scar tingled with recognition as his mind screamed at the distorted and snakelike mirage of Tom Riddle.

August 31st. One more day until Hogwarts, then Harry would be free from him. The barren and gaunt expression Voldemort held on his – for lack of a better word – face pricked at his mind like a needle and grew red hot with anger whenever the pristine mystery of his younger self strutted around one of the many corners of the Burrow.

He hadn’t had much contact with Tom Riddle over the past month or so, which was a miniscule blessing in a myriad of vices, and the beast himself seemed to keep his distance fairly well. There was the odd occasion – quidditch being one of them – were he managed to slither his way into Harry’s life, however for the most part, Harry’s life was Riddle free.

And he hated it.

Not that he wanted to spend time with the murderer – he wanted nothing less – however it was hard to investigate someone secretly when the person in question seemed to be as elusive as a Grindelow in mating season.

He could seek him out… but he didn’t want to. Never in his life would he instigate a conversation with Tom Riddle. With Voldemort.

Because that was who he was, after all. Beneath the charmed smiled and the clandestine expression that was permanently plastered on his face, he was no more than the monster who killed his parents.

And everyone but him seemed to forget it.

Hermione. Mrs Weasley. Mr Weasley. They all spoke to him like he was a person – when obviously he was not.

Even the rest of them lacked the burning hatred that they aimed at his counterpart and looked at Riddle with no more than a lick of annoyance, or at most a strong dislike.

Even Ginny ‘bat-bogey-hex’ Weasley had yet to cast a curse at him, although her seething looks were not missed by either Harry or the dreaded snake.

A small silver lining, he supposed.

“Oi, Harry!” A voice bellowed from the other side of the small room, causing Harry to shake quickly from his thoughts.

He groaned.

“I know mate, believe me, but mum wants us all downstairs. Something about Hogwarts.”

xXx

 

“Oh Harry! How wonderful, now we’re all up,” Mrs Weasley smiled, clapping her hands in an excitable motion before hurrying off into the kitchen.

Harry looked around. ‘Up’ was a strong word for it.

The twins were stood leaning on each other for support and sporting two wide yawns. Ginny sat on a chair, her elbow resting on the harsh wood and propping up her drooping head. Ron and Hermione were stood next to one another – although Hermione seemed a whole deal more awake than Ron was, if his closed eyes and heavy breaths were anything to go by.

And then there was him – Harry hadn’t even noticed him. Awake, dressed, groomed; Tom Riddle stood awaiting conversation in the far side of the room, his ankles and arms crossed in polite anticipation.

Then his eyes caught Harry’s, and he smiled civilly – venom dripping from his teeth.

Harry looked away, focusing promptly on Mrs Weasley, followed closely by no other than Kingsley Shacklebolt.

Kingsley spoke first.

“As I’m sure you all know, the school term starts tomorrow, and as such, I’m here to discuss the details of Mr Tom Riddle’s placement at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.”

Ginny gaped. “You can’t mean he’s actually coming _to Hogwarts!”_

Kingsley grimaced, and Harry felt Riddle’s magic pulse through his scar as the boy behind him stifled his annoyance.

“I’m afraid so, Miss Weasley. Albus Dumbledore sees it best that he’s in a position to watch Mr Riddle, and in accordance, he will be attending sixth year under the guise of Mr Thomas Granger.”

Hermione bristled.

“ _Granger!”_

Kingsley smiled, “Yes, Professor Dumbledore thought that coming from a muggleborn background may prove to be a… learning curve for Mr Riddle. He shall be acting as your cousin whilst at school.”

Harry gawped, mirroring the expression of everyone in the room.

“I don’t understand how coming from a muggle background helps him, Sir, when he _actually grew up in a muggle orphanage!”_ Harry hissed, “how could you do that to Hermione?”

The lips of Thomas Riddle quirked upwards, “I don’t particularly understand Mr Potter how appearing related to me hurts Miss Granger. If anything, two powerful people coming from the same family may boost her reputation at school.”

“I don’t need _your_ help to boost _my_ reputation!” Hermione huffed, “I happen to like it just the way it is.”

Riddle smiled at that, and seemingly bit down any scathing comment towards her – gazing amused as if Hermione was but a stroppy toddler.

“Just a thought,” he purred, and Hermione scoffed, turning her attention back to Kingsley.

“What about the sorting?” She probed, and Kingsley raised his eyebrows.

“What about it?” He pressed, and Hermione crossed her arms in frustration.

“You can’t possibly let him back into Slytherin, to mingle with the spawn of Death Eaters!”

“Professor Dumbledore has assured me after much deliberation, that Mr Riddle will not be placed back into Slytherin, but Ravenclaw. However, regarding lessons, he will share a timetable with the Gryffindor sixth years so that you may… help him adjust”

 _‘Keep an eye on him, more like’_ Harry thought grimly, and turned to see Riddle’s face unchanged and just as expressionless as it had started.

“Will we be catching the Hogwarts Express?” Hermione questioned, her finger pulling at her lip in thought, “to keep up appearances, that is.”

Harry smiled softly to himself. She was a prefect after all, and although appearances did not matter in the slightest to Hermione, Harry was sure that she wanted to catch the train so that she may attend the prefect meeting.

“I don’t see why they can’t,” Mrs Weasley cut in, smiling hopefully at Kingsley, “I mean, it would raise questions if they didn’t, surely.”

Kingsley pursed his lips and regarded the room of redheads with stark faces of disgust and anger; the bushy haired academic who was muttering book lists to herself; the bespectacled boy who stood strong in front of him, and finally, the monster himself.

“I don’t see why not. Although,” he looked at Riddle’s manner – poised, and ‘perfect’, “perhaps you should consider educating Mr Riddle on the… ahem… _style_ of the 90’s.”

Harry was pleased to see Riddle touch his hair, scorned slightly at the jab. It was true though – nobody, especially in the muggle world, groomed their hair like that anymore.

“Of course,” Mrs Weasley hurried, looking hurriedly at the door, “but Kingsley, didn’t you say you had a meeting with the uh… _Fire Group_ to attend?”

Kingsley smiled at that and looked at his watch, “yes I did. It was good to speak to you all, but I must be off.”

He nodded at each of them in turn, even Riddle to Harry’s dismay, and promptly disapparated on the spot.

Ron looked at his mother.

“ _Fire Group?!”_

xXx

 

Ravenclaw. _Really?_

If anyone was going to figure him out, it would be those bookworms, although Tom didn’t fancy making it easy for them.

Although the tip of the iceberg was his new name: Thomas _Granger_. Acting as the very thing he would seek to destroy was a new form of irony, and one that Dumbledore must have been very proud of concocting for him.

And what did that man mean? ‘ _Perhaps you should consider educating Mr Riddle’._ He touched his hair, pride broken, and vanity shamed, and frowned softly.

He was sceptical as to whether a changed hairdo would make or break his expedition here, however, if it was that or Azkaban…

“Excuse me, could you tell me what Mr Shacklebolt meant by educating me on the style of the 90’s?” He asked, reaching forth and laying his hand on his ‘cousin’s’ shoulder; smiling.

She looked him up and down, wrinkling her nose in disgust. _He wasn’t that bad right? Oh no! He was just the great Dark Lord Voldemort, hunter of Mudbloods! That must be it._

“Don’t put that product in your hair, firstly, and take that wretched disillusionment charm of your face – freckles won’t make anyone hate you, you know. You’d be much more convincing with natural hair.”

He smirked, “like yours?”

She sniffed, fiddling with a strand of her curly mane. “Yes, I suppose so. Now if you’d excuse me, I’ve got to go.”

“Where?” He asked cheekily, a sideways smile on his face.

She didn’t turn around.

“Anywhere but here.”

 

xXx

 

Harry brushed his fingers lightly over the stray feathers that stuck out of Hedwig’s cage, sighing to himself as he waited for the others by Platform 9 ¾. He was the first to be here and had stepped into the Floo earlier than the rest to avoid _his_ smug face. He wouldn’t let Tom Riddle ruin Hogwarts for him.

He leant lackadaisically on his trolley, hair falling shambolically over his circular glasses, veiling his startling green eyes. The sun shone through the glass roof and lit up his hands – the copper colour of his hands dripping golden honey. The rims of his glasses reflected dangerously, however paired with the bored pout and relaxed eyebrows Harry donned, it was neutralised, and only acted as a method to accentuate his eyes – startling green that they were.

However, the myriad of interest that was Harry Potter’s face was shattered in tow by a jagged scar that was etched into his skin from his forehead down to the tips of his lips. Branches obscured the cinnamon of his skin, causing it to devolve into an ashen colour around their roots. It was deep and painful, and looked like Voldemort’s wand had been driven through his forehead rather than aimed at it; devastating the ceramic skin of baby Harry.

Paired with his baggy clothes and singular trunk, he looked a right state, and to a perfectionist such as Thomas Riddle, there were many things that could be picked apart. Not that he cared, he just didn’t want to be miserable for the remainder of the school year.

“Harry, there you are!” Ron yelled, pushing his trolley at an alarming speed over and almost knocking over a few pedestrians on the way; earning him a rather begruntled look from a middle-aged man in a cheap suit and tie.

“Blimey, mate, how long have you been waiting here by yourself?”

Harry quirked his eyebrow and straightened his back, so he looked at Ron’s neck rather than his navel.

“Not long, however I quite like being by myself – better company, you kno- oi Hermione, what was that for?”

Harry rubbed his arm as Hermione recoiled her fist, looking rather satisfied with herself.

“For inferring that you don’t like spending time with us, you nitwit,” she chuckled, and Harry smiled, content if only for a moment with his family.

Then that moment ended.

“You should’ve gotten a seat on the train, rather than waiting so long. They’ll all be gone now,” Riddle taunted, leaning against the wall of Platform 9, arms crossed.

Harry smirked at his appearance.

“What’s up with your hair, Riddle?”

It was a genuine question. The usually manicured locks were set loose, wavy and rather long – hanging just above his eyebrow. It wasn’t crazy – not like his or Hermione’s - but he definitely looked different. His blue eyes almost seemed deeper, and a new smattering of freckles had appeared over his nose. He looked more laidback, and less pureblood.

Not that he was a pureblood.

Paired with Ron’s plain shirt – which was slightly too big and too red – Riddle almost passed for a normal person. Almost.

But his face was cold.

“I listened to kind Miss Granger of course, advice from cousin to cousin. She thought it would make me fit in.”

Hermione scowled. “We are _not_ cousins.”

“Say it a little louder Granger why don’t you, let the whole station know,” Riddle snapped, breaking his disguise just a little bit.

It was quite a sight to watch, seeing his eyes flash dangerously. Comforting too, to know that Harry wasn’t going crazy.

To be fair to Hermione, they didn’t exactly look like family. Riddle’s porcelain skin strongly juxtaposed the mocha hue of Hermione’s, and the height difference was all to prevalent.

But that’s why it was cousins, not siblings. It wasn’t suspicious for them to look different.

“There you all are!” Mrs Weasley smiled, dragging a glowering Ginny behind her, who was focused on Riddle the entire time, “we thought we’d lost you!”

She smiled at all of them, her gaze wavering slightly when she viewed Riddle.

She shook it off.

“Right, had everyone got their robes to hand? Wouldn’t want you rummaging through your trunks for them.”

Harry didn’t actually, but it didn’t matter. It wasn’t as if he had much stuff to rummage through anyway.

It looked like Riddle was of the same mindset, clutching his small – smaller than Harry’s – trunk quick tightly by his side.

Harry was snapped out of his thoughts when a pair of arms wrapped him tightly, red hair tickling his nose.

“See you soon, Mrs Weasley,” Harry smiled, hugging her back.

She placed her hand fondly on his cheek before turning aware, nodding briefly at Riddle, who waved in response, before stepping back and gesturing towards the wall between Platforms 9 and 10.

“Have fun!” She yelled as Harry disappeared through the wall, only to be greeted by the bustling magic of the secret side of Kings Cross Station.

xXx

 

“Harry!” A boy called from inside a compartment, and waved Harry Potter in, who gladly accepted the invitation, closely followed by Ginny Weasley.

Tom followed behind, ducking out of the way of flying trunks and hurried students, until he arrived at the door of the compartment that his peers had entered.

And he smiled to himself. This would be rather fun.

He opened the door.

“Hello?” The same boy said, looking Tom up and down whilst cradling a large plant on his lap.

“Do you think I could sit? All the other compartments are full…” Tom asked politely, deliberately looking only at the unknown faces that would be fooled by his guise.

“Of course!” The boy said between bites of a pumpkin pasty, “my name’s Neville Longbottom.”

“Nice to meet you, my name’s Thomas Granger,” Tom said as he sat down, right next to the enigmatic Harry Potter.

“Granger? Like Hermione?” 

“Yes, she’s my cousin,” Tom lied, feeling Harry tense quite quickly next to him, “I’m new here. I attended Beauxbatons previously, however… my parents recently died. I’m staying with Hermione now.”

Tom figured the backstory would rattle Harry Potter the most, while also gaining the empathy of the students. Parents killed by Voldemort, probably… Yes. That was quite the story.

True also, in a way.

“I’m so sorry. Was it… you know…? He-who-must-not-be-named?” Neville whispered.

Tom smiled sadly.

“I have been quite victimised by Voldemort.”

They gasped, and Harry seemed to freeze as if shot with a particularly nasty rendition of _Petrificus Totalus._

“You said his name!” Neville gaped.

“Yes, well…” Tom thought for a second, before smiling slightly, “fear of the thing only increases fear of the thing itself.”

Hermione had said that, at some point, he was sure.

“And I have no reason to fear Lord Voldemort.”


	9. Chapter 9

_“Well I’ve been burning for a while, I find_

_Crimson lilies in every corner of my filthy mind”_

_xXx_

“I wish I was that courageous,” Neville whispered in awe, eyes glassy and large, “that’s so smart!”

“Or stupid,” Ginny murmured, and Harry was reminded of her presence; she had been uncharacteristically quiet up until now.

She had sunken back into her seat the same as Harry had, and was obviously not blinded by the sickening view of Tom Riddle. He was thankful to have someone else with him who knew the truth, Harry didn’t think he could handle a whole compartment of people fawning over the snake.

“It’s nothing,” Tom dismissed, but Harry could see the shine in his eyes – mischief. He was _loving_ this, “I just applied logic to the situation. He’s a terrorist, and therefore wants people to be scared of him. Not calling him by his name is playing right into his hands.”

Neville gawped at Tom, awestruck, honestly! and Harry was reminded of his crutches – Ron and Hermione – and how happy they must be away from all this. Damn them to hell for leaving him with the devil.

Not to mention his preposterous story, as if _he_ would know the pain of being orphaned by Voldemort. He was the one who killed his father, after all.

“I need some air,” Harry announced, and stood rather promptly, not looking behind to see Ginny’s betrayed face and Riddle’s intrigued one as he left the compartment.

The Hogwarts Express was hurtling through acre after acre of identical countryside, and the babble of students and their meaningless conversations worsened his already agonizing headache.

“Watch it, Potter,” Pansy Parkinson spat as she paraded down the thin corridor of the train, and Harry returned her a venomous look before moving onwards.

“Alohamora,” he whispered at the door, and was pleasantly surprised to hear the lock click open – he figured it would be more heavily guarded than that – and the door swing to reveal a fast receding track and a small balcony.

Harry stepped out, fresh air hitting his face like a curse, and he breathed it in, leaning against the fencing for support. The dull ache of his scar was muted from the wind, and his raven hair was pushed back from his forehead – revealing skin that had yet to see the sun.

“It’s nice out here isn’t it,” a voice purred, and Harry spun around, hitting a certain snake in the jaw with his fist.

Tom Riddle recoiled, patting his split lip with his pale hand, and Harry waited – wand in hand – for his retaliation.

Instead, Riddle smirked, and brought his hand down.

“I guess I deserved that,” he admitted, with a nonchalant shrug of his shoulders, and regrettably joined Harry at the balcony.

Harry narrowed his eyes at the boy – at his new haircut blowing, and at his piercing eyes – and decided against cursing him… yet. It would be too noticeable against his pale skin. The blood from his mouth was reforming, and Riddle licked it away with a subconscious swipe of his tongue, quite aware that he was completely ignoring Harry.

“Why can’t you leave me alone?” Harry hissed at Riddle, who just quirked the corners of his lips in response.

“I seem to be quite drawn to you, Harry,” Riddle admitted, and Harry snarled viciously, redrawing his wand.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Harry snapped, annoyed at Riddle’s sudden passiveness and fake kindness. Why couldn’t they just hate each other without all this… confusion?

“It means,” Riddle drawled, reaching towards Harry’s forehead; towards his scar, “that you and I are connected Harry Potter. There’s just no doubt about it.”

Harry brought his own hand up to his scar and prodded it lightly, surprised to feel the pain slowly drain away.

 

“If you mean by killing my parents,” Harry pointed out, his teeth bared and eyes feral, “then yeah, I guess so.”

Riddle’s porcelain face went slack for a moment – a break in his manner – before repainting an expression of interest and curiosity on his features.

“I didn’t kill your parents, Harry,” Tom smiled, and Harry blinked furiously against the now painful wind.

“What the hell does that mean? Of course you did!”

The Heir of Slytherin tutted, shaking his finger as if he were a disappointed teacher. It reminded Harry vaguely of Umbridge, although the similarities ended there. _‘I must not tell lies.’_ Well that’s all Riddle did.

“No. _Voldemort_ killed your parents, and although we may share the same lungs and brain, we are not the same person. Voldemort is a fraction of Tom Riddle, for he only holds a fraction of my soul left in him. Even I, although near pristine, am not an accurate representation of Tom Marvolo Riddle. Although I am damn better than Voldemort. Would you agree?”

Riddle smiled, crocodile, and awaited Harry’s answer – eyes scanning the cogs that whirred inside the Chosen One’s head.

“Voldemort wouldn’t exist without you,” Harry argued, and by the look on Riddle’s face, it seemed as if Harry’s answer had not surprised him. Quite the opposite, actually.

“And your parents wouldn’t be dead without you.”

The words smacked Harry across the face and clawed at his eyes – tears threatening yet stubbornly holding back – and his scar began to jump out of his head with his increasing heartbeat. What Riddle said didn’t surprise him, he had thought about it too many times to be shocked, however hearing it come from someone’s mouth… it was different. It solidified it, even if the source of information was from Satan himself.

Riddle sighed, and he turned away from Harry, and it was only then that Harry realised he had been watching him at all.

“We’re entering Scotland. You should get changed,” Riddle observed, and looked Harry once over before turning and leaving him.

Harry pulled at a loose thread on his shirt, and closed his eyes, breathing heavily to regulate the stinging of tears and the pounding headache that threatened him.

“Damn you Riddle,” he whispered to himself, eyes closed, before following out the door.

 

xXx

 

“Settle down,” the booming voice of Dumbledore echoed, and within seconds the hall was dead silent as they awaited the opening speech to the feast.

“Now that we’ve sorted our First Years – a lovely procession, thank you Professor McGonagall – I have one more announcement to make. We have a new student joining sixth year. Thomas Granger, if you could stand up please.”

Eyes scoured the hall as Tom stood proud at the Ravenclaw table, looking directly at Dumbledore rather than at the other students. Their pinpricked eyes and Neanderthal foreheads would distract him, and frankly, Tom was not in the mood for their curious gaze.

Tom sat down, after approximately 6 seconds, and looked coyly – an act! – at his empty plate.

“Let the feast begin!” Dumbledore announced, and immediately, the scraping of forks and chatter of students was all too loud and too overwhelming; Tom couldn’t think with all the racket.

He was used to it of course, having had come to Hogwarts previously, but the quiet that he had to endure whenever he entered a room at the Weasley household had become the norm for him. This was all too familiar, yet all too odd. The people in this hall, spare a select few, had no idea who he was.

Tom reached forwards and lumped a portion of mashed potatoes on his plate, along with a single sausage and a drizzle of gravy; a perfect meal, if he did say so himself.

And he was just about to eat it too, before everyone started talking to him.

“Tom, it’s lovely to see you again. I’m so pleased you made it to Ravenclaw, I knew you would see,” the blonde girl he had met in Diagon Alley spoke and thrust her hand out across the table to shake his. Tom returned the gesture, careful not to wrinkle his nose too much, and brought his hand back down quickly.

“I’ve heard that Ravenclaw has quite the reputation for producing intelligent students. I hope I can live up to that,” he bluffed – he knew he far surpassed these people – and smiled charmingly at both the blonde and her surrounding friends. Luna, if he remembered correctly, Lovegood. Luna Lovegood.

“I’m sure you will,” a girl spoke from next to Luna. Well, he said next to, but there was a significant gap between the blonde and this newcomer. Tom got the impression that Luna Lovegood wasn’t the most popular of girls.

Tom turned his attention back to his mashed potatoes – laced with too much butter and too fluffed to be real, although that’s Hogwarts, he supposed. Used to a country living on rations, cream and sugar wasn’t something that he was all too used to.

“Tom, follow me after dinner. I’ll show you were the common room is,” a girl said, twisting her mousy brown hair around a painted finger. Great. Even the smart house couldn’t control their emotions.

Regardless, he smiled at her, “I’ll look for you.”

The reaction he got out of the girl was the same as he had seen countless times before. A blush, a bought of coyness, and thoughts rushing through her head. It was all too easy.

Tom looked over to the Gryffindor table, and easily spotted Potter – surrounded by a mass of bushy hair and redheads – and waved casually. Potter, who had been staring at him, glowered and scowled, looking away quicker than Tom could smirk at him – his back was good enough, he supposed.

It was all too easy to annoy Harry Potter, which bode wonderfully for his plans.

 

xXx

 

“I can’t stand him!” Harry growled, crossing his arms like a five-year-old and glaring at his plate of pie.

Hermione rolled her eyes, “honestly Harry, there’s nothing you can do about it. My _cousin_ may be a pain, but it works better for all of us if he’s _on our side!”_

Harry just snarled – rather Slytherin like if she said so herself – and ignored her, encouraged by Ronald Weasley who was making the same expression but being much more verbal about his thoughts.

“That cocky bastard needs to get off his high horse and realise we don’t need him, in fact, we’d be better off without him! Maybe then he could actually be, you know… not completely evil.”

Ginny, who was just as upset about the Riddle situation, scowled at her brother and continued to eat her dinner – which Hermione was thankful for, honestly. At least someone had a head about them.

“Oi, ‘Mione, are you related to that new guy?” Seamus Finnegan shouted from over the table, leaning forward.

His tie was in his gravy, Hermione noted.

“Thomas is my cousin,” she smiled, aware of Harry’s glare (oh Harry, what was she _supposed_ to do _!_ Say he’s Voldemort?) and looked back towards Seamus, “he’s quite nice. Although for some reason, Ronald and Harry here seem to have an issue with him.”

Seamus grinned, elbowing Ron in the side, and Ron just glared at him, and her, and went back to sulking over his sausages.

Then Lavender Brown spoke up – she had been watching Ron this entire time, goodness! – and made everything so much worse.

“He’s quite attractive too, isn’t he Hermione?” She and Parvati giggled together, and Ron sank even lower into his seat. Hermione smiled a little at that, before turning back with an incredulous look to the two girls.

“He’s my cousin, Lavender, I’ve never thought about it. I suppose so, yes,” she replied without any particular emotion, and returned to her food, quite aware that a blush was creeping up the back of her neck.

Thank goodness for all her hair.

 

xXx

 

Tom thought he was used to the 90’s.

Oh how drastically wrong he was.

The girl – her name being Maud Wilde – led him through the familiar corridors of Hogwarts castle, and giggled slightly when they came across a couple doing some _very inappropriate things_ in the corridor!

“Come on, let’s give them some privacy,” Wilde hushed, dragging Tom the other way. He was too stunned to even realise she had grabbed his arm.

The boy’s hand had been… _goodness!_

“If they wanted privacy, they shouldn’t have been in the middle of the corridor,” Tom sniffed, and Wilde giggled at that – she giggled a lot – and slapped his arm playfully.

“They’re just teenagers, Tom, experiencing the wonders of love,” she gushed, leading Tom round into a, thankfully, empty corridor, “haven’t you ever had such desires for passion?”

He was glad to hear her soft sarcasm on the last sentence – people didn’t even talk like that in his time – but his nose still wrinkled. He looked down.

Maud Wilde was blushing quite furiously.

He smiled, “of course I have, but such things are worth doing in private, don’t you think?”

He had never thought about that, beyond a professional curiosity, and he had certainly never done it. But Wilde seemed to fall for his games, and her small chirp of embarrassment – or arousal – did not go missed.

There were a couple of moments of blissful silence. Then…

“You know who you kind of look like?” Wilde pondered, and Tom resisted the urge to sigh. For a Ravenclaw, she really was such an airhead.

“Who?” He answered, but he really wasn’t interested in the answer.

“Newt Scamander. I was reading in the library – as you do – and came across Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, although it was a special version with an About the Author section in the back, which his picture in it. He was quite attractive actually. If you had lighter hair and eyes, and maybe smiled a bit more, you could be twins!”

Tom smirked at that; she had indirectly called him attractive. He knew he was, of course, but it still pleased him when someone said it. Especially on accident.

Tom didn’t particularly believe he looked like Mr Scamander, however he let her continue on her rambles. Better that than trying to make conversation with him.

“We’re here!” Wilde announced, spreading her arms like a showman. Tom looked at the polished bronze eagle in front of him and cocked his head slightly.

“You’ve got to answer the riddle!” Wilde said, touching the eagle gently. It’s eyes glowed a faint blue.

“ _I can break, I can be clogged, I can be attacked, I can be given, I can be kept, I can be crushed yet I can be whole at the same time. What am I?”_

Tom thought bitterly if this riddle had been chosen specifically for him – he knew the answer though, of course.

He pretended to ponder for sport. Wilde looked on with interest.

“I suppose it must be a heart, although a toilet would also be an appropriate answer,” Tom mused. The door to Ravenclaw tower swung open.

A toilet wasn’t an appropriate answer, but it made Wilde laugh for something other than infatuation for him – which made Tom smile. Not for her of course, but as a reassurance of his charm.

He stepped into the room, and no one looked up. It was rather annoying really. In Slytherin, people rushed to greet him – which had been infuriating in itself – however it acted as a reminder of his importance: he was the Heir of Slytherin, powerful and superior, and should be treated as such.

But here, they were too focused on chess, or conversation, or their books. There was no cowering, nor gushing, nor flirting – although some of the girls giggled at him in the corner – and it made him slightly sick to his stomach. Just another reminder that he wasn’t supposed to be here; this wasn’t his time.

“Professor Dumbledore has arranged a private room for you Tom, whilst you get settled,” Wilde explained, and Tom hummed approvingly. At least the incompetent old fool could do something right.

She pointed towards the boy’s staircase, “It should lead you to where you need to go.”

Tom nodded at her and bid her goodnight – he had no intention of speaking to her again and began to climb the stairs.

As the girl had said, he knew where to go – the trail of magic was rather potent after all – and came across a small room, blocked off by a simple yet ornate wooden door.

He pushed it open and was greeted with a room very similar in size to that of his orphanage abode, however without the spiders and dust and illness. It was notable smaller than the private rooms at Slytherin, however due to the amount of pureblooded princes and princesses that stayed there it was most likely to avoid complaints about the ‘lack of living space’.

There wasn’t a lack of it. It was perfectly fine; cosy even.

Books were stacked high in each corner and contained an assortment of titles of varying themes. The window was high and looked over the lake, with the view obscured mildly by that of Hagrid’s Hut – although it almost added to the character.

There was a single – not double, although Tom slept still anyways – bed in the centre of the room, with a blue blanket on it and a singular trunk – filled most likely with spare robes, undergarments and perhaps some casual wear.

Tom closed the door and warded it – he would a very private person after all – before collapsing in a heap on the bed.

His chest rose and fell quite rapidly, and he closed his eyes, arm strewn across his forehead.

It had been a rather long day.

But there was always tomorrow.

And with that singular thought, the though of what tomorrow would bring, Tom laughed.

It wasn’t poised or proper or even attractive – although some might argue otherwise. It was quite crazed, in fact.

It was a good thing the doors were warded, for if anyone walked in, they would gaze upon the disturbing but true nature of Tom Riddle.


	10. Chapter 10

Morning in the Ravenclaw common room was slightly less chaotic than Tom was expecting, and most certainly quieter than the dungeons, wherein the mindless chatter of purebloods and monotonous flow of the lake occupied his headspace and suffocated his thoughts. No, if he had to name one thing that Ravenclaw’s were good at, it would be keeping quiet.

The flicking of books and bustle of feet was a symphony that powered creativity, and the deep-thoughted debates over a game of chess spawned Tom’s thinking. And, unlike Slytherins, the Ravenclaw did not seem to have the need to flaunt their house colours to anyone.

Bronze rails ran horizontally across the wall, visible through a backsplash of bookshelves – which held anything from trophies to a mug; scarcely actual books. The ceiling was tall, however a balcony ran smoothly around the cupola – accessed by a moving set of ladders that spun (almost treacherously) around the spherical domains of the room.

Tom wasn’t sure that he liked the Ravenclaw common room better than the Slytherin, but the lack of grovelling and gossip was a blessed relief to his poor ears.

And, sat in the isolated corner, he could hear no disruption or noise that would cause him to anger; it was perfect.

“Hey Tom!” Maud Wilde yelled from the other side of the common room, her small stature and pathetic bunches reminding him morbidly of one Myrtle Warren. He smiled to himself.

She bounded over to him, stout legs tickling the floor as she flew, leaving Tom barely any time to brace himself for her… extroversion.

“Maud,” he smiled charmingly, and closed his book – which he hadn’t been reading – quite abruptly, “how can I help you?”

Trust his luck to manage to gain the most talkative Ravenclaw as his personal shadow.

She giggled, and swatted the air in girlish foolishness, “Tom, you’re new! I doubt you could help me anyway.”

He gritted his teeth. Dumb, spineless wretch. He could teach her a fair thing or too. A sharp green light perhaps, or the stare of some merciless slitted eyes.

But, nonetheless, he smiled at her, and gestured for her to continue.

“Oh!” She jumped startled, seeming to have forgotten the flow of conversation, “yeah, sorry… Padma Patil, the prefect, asked me to give you your timetable.”

Wilde held out an envelope – unopened, curiously – and smiled down at him.

So he opened it.

She peered over his shoulder, “Aw! You’re not in any of my classes!”

He smirked at that, before remembering whom he would be taking classes with.

“I’m shadowing the Gryffindors,” Tom enlightened, standing, “so that I can settle in with my dear cousin.”

Wilde pouted at that, her ankle playing its opposite – circling around like a dog mindlessly chasing its own tail.

“I could… help you settle,” she mumbled, half offering; half complaining.

Tom looked down sadly at her, “I think my family would be best fitted to help me, Maud. I am quite sorry.”

She sniffled – pitiful – and grinned up at him.

“It’s okay,” she rebounded, jumping on her heels, “I’ll just have to make up for the lost time!”

He sighed slightly, grinding his teeth together into a fake smile.

“That would be perfect.”

She didn’t catch the sarcasm.

xXx

 

 

“Harry, you have to eat something,” Hermione, scorned, pushing the plate of sausages and bacon towards him.

Harry sunk his chin into his knuckles, back arched, and turned away.

“I’ve lost my appetite.”

Hermione scoffed, “honestly! He’s not going anywhere, at least for the time being, so you might as well get on with your life!”

Harry grumbled into his plate but didn’t resist when Hermione began to fill it up with an assortment of meats and vegetables. They did look good though.

“Cheer up mate, look! We’ve got Defence Against the Dark Arts first, and then… oh. Double Potions. But then, two free periods!”

“Which you should use for _studying_ , Ronald.”

Ron scowled at Hermione, and just like that, the two started bickering, and Harry was left to his own thoughts once more.

Besides the tyrannical problem of Riddle, Harry supposed that this year would be… okay. Snape was no longer potions master, but defence teacher – and although he would much rather not have Snape at all, he’d rather have him in a subject that he excelled at rather than one where his skill was lacking. And the new potions teacher, Slughorn, seemed to be rather aloft and, to be honest, kind of a pushover. I mean, he let Harry into his NEWT class, despite him not getting the required grades for Snape.

And Quidditch. Oh, how Harry was looking forward to getting out on his broom, properly, and flying far away from everything. From Snape, from Riddle, from NEWTs. And this year, he was team captain, which just bode better for the Gryffindor team, even though they had lost a fair few good players to the confines of time and age.

Oh well. At least they didn’t have Umbridge anymore.

“…and Harry agrees with me, don’t you?” Hermione snapped, her usual face of displeasure and righteousness clapping onto his own confusion, and the unbridled fury in her eyes almost made him choke.

“Uh, yeah. Yeah,” Harry said, unconvincingly, and was met with the narrowing of pupils, and the turn of a head.

He had no idea what he had just agreed to, of course. Those two changed conversation like purebloods changed clothes.

“Well, I’m going to go to the library before lesson, and brush up on this year’s Defence curriculum,” Hermione announced, flushed, and promptly left the table, her skirt swishing metronomically as she stormed out.

“What the hell did you do?” Harry laughed slightly, turning back the beetroot-faced Ron, who was shaking his head.

“Girls,” he said simply, and with that, he began to stuff his face again, and the point was lost.

xXx

 

“It will not come as a surprise to any of you that I hold high expectations for this class. Many of you only scraped a pass in your OWLs, and I intend to weed out those of you who are truly unworthy.”

Tom stood amongst an amass of Gryffindors and Slytherins, the stench of fear almost suffocating, their weakness noxious, as they all watched in anticipation as the greasy-haired professor flounced across the room.

“Now. Sit.”

The class filtered through uniformly to the seats, two a desk, and Tom was pushed through the crowds and shoved into a desk with a particularly ratty looking Slytherin boy, his face long and pointed and his hair slicked and platinum blond – his grey eyes dull. He reeked of inbreeding. A Malfoy.

“Today you will be demonstrating the perils and merits to the art of duelling. You will watch, and you will prove your skills in pairs to the class.”

Tom looked around, vaguely aware of the Malfoy boy beside him scoffing at the ‘absurdity of the task’ and watched intently at the partnerships his classmates had begrudgingly made.

Potter was with a boy that was whispering in a particularly strong Irish accent. Hermione was with a girl with a doglike face and hair curled around the circular bend of her jaw. And the Weasley boy… well, he was with a Gryffindor girl who was obviously smitten with him, for whatever reason. They were playing footsie under the table, and it was _not_ as discreet as they so obviously thought.

“Malfoy, Granger. Up.”

Tom’s head snapped back to the professor, who was staring quite disgustingly at their table, and rose, meeting the Professor’s eyes with every movement. Following the blond boy over to the open floorspace, catching a glimpse at the wandering eyes and curious gazes that his classmates sent him, Tom brought his wand out, brandishing it lazily in front of him. He truly could not be bothered.

“Begin.”

Tom bowed, low enough to appear genuine, but high enough to see the Malfoy boy draw his wand prematurely.

“Flipendo!”

The knockback jinx. How predictable.

A white film erupted from Tom’s wand and spread around him, engulfing the pitiable spell with ease.

“Conjunctivitis,” Tom thought, and the spell hit the Malfoy boy before he even had a chance to react properly, sending a half-formed stupefy to the left and hitting a stack of books of the shelf.

“Avis,” he said, aloud, and sent a torrent of golden birds towards the blond boy – who swatted them with one hand as he scratched his swollen eyes with the other.

The birds nipped at Malfoy’s nose, his ears, the very tips of his pale fingers. Tom could hear the class’s breath hitch with anticipation.

Tom smiled as he ended him.

“Immobulus,” he grinned, and watched as the Malfoy boy stopped in his tracks, the birds swarming around his still body.

He had to say, in this case: this was much more fun than the cruciatus or a killing curse.

“Stop the duel,” the professor droned, and Tom had to refrain from rolling his eyes. ‘ _Really?’_

“Finite Incantatem,” Tom drawled, releasing the rat and diminishing the birds.

The class watched, entrapped in a sense of both wonder and intrigue, as Tom lowered his wand and walked forwards to the Malfoy boy, whose hair was mussed and face was red, with not even the hint of satisfaction on his face – bleeding confidence and charm and hiding the deep repulsion that came from being so close to his opponent.

Leaning down, a hand extended, Tom raised his eyebrows expectantly to the panting figure below him and smiled a faint breath of a smile as Malfoy’s clammy hand clasped his own. Eyes locked, the Malfoy boy hissed as he stood, a small line of blood crawling down his cheek.

He leaned in to Tom as he passed, shoulders bumping, and snarled.

“Mudblood.”

A flash.

A yell.

Malfoy on the ground, his face red, nose streaming from Tom’s bloodied knuckles.

“Mister Granger!” The Professor snapped, the rise in emotion just enough to knock Tom out of his tempered rage. Just.

Tom blinked away the red, and raised his head high, cruel light dancing in his eyes.

 

xXx

 

Harry Potter was tired.

And not just tired, _no._

Harry Potter was physically and utterly shattered, his eyes circled by both glasses and darkness, his head hung low and back arched in a defeated posture.

But the tip of the iceberg was not Snape, was not even Tom Riddle’s constant presence.

It was that murderous gaze, the one he’d seen many a time before, plastered on Voldemort’s face as he stared hungrily down at Draco Malfoy.

Voldemort had exhausted him beyond comprehensible belief, the continuous threat that he posed an endless cycle of fatigue and anger that seemed to only let up when his head was filled with butterbeer and eyes swirling with fire-whiskey. And now he was here, in the charming form of Tom Riddle, raring his head when Harry least expected it, and lashing out to the people who were supposedly on his side.

This was a new breed of Voldemort, whose hair was not yet gone, but messy and enrapturing. Whose eyes were not red and bleeding, but cold and calculating, mysterious and dangerous. And Harry didn’t know how to deal with him.

So when he saw the flash of skin that caused Malfoy to splay defenceless, his pitiful whimpers only masked by the heavy breaths that he panted, Harry rushed to his feet, held back only by the tight grip of Hermione who was watching with equal worry and anticipation as everyone else, but with a higher understanding and fear in her eyes.

She saw Voldemort, where everyone else saw Thomas Granger.

And if there was one thing that Harry knew, it was that denying the existence of a monster causes death, destruction and anarchy beyond what anyone was capable of dealing with.

“Harry please,” Hermione pleaded in his ear, her voice echoing passed his pounding heart, “don’t.”

So Harry looked on.

 

xXx

 

Albus Dumbledore was a man of many talents, many attributes, and many mysteries, and there was not much that he did not know. In fact, it was easier to list the things that he had yet to learn, rather than that which he did not know, over that which he knew. But with the universe’s endless knowledge, it was reasonable to say that Albus Dumbledore knew the same as that which he didn’t, and with that said, there are many things that Albus Dumbledore had yet to learn.

Even though he knew a lot.

One of those things, regrettably, was the conundrum of Thomas Riddle, whose vices had been studied by the headmaster at every opportunity, and whose temper had been encountered on numerous an occasion, from his school days to his – for lack of a better word – career.

Even now, many years on, Albus had not even the slightest of clues as to what the true nature of Tom Riddle was. Although, it is worth mentioning that he had plenty of inklings, and feelings, and thoughts about what lie behind his stony exterior, however none were concrete enough to, say, set in stone. Not enough definitive evidence.

It was entirely probable that Tom Riddle was a good person, just in the way that it was entirely probable that he was not. In fact, due to the – previously mentioned – endless knowledge and possibilities that the great ether held, it was entirely possible, although not too likely, that Tom Riddle was not Lord Voldemort at all.

Over the years, Albus Dumbledore had gained quite the reputation for being, how do you put it… off his rocker. Mad in every sense of the word, but not quite crazy, for to be crazy you would have to dwell on the imaginative. And, as he knew and everyone forgot, those who dwell on dreams forget to live, don’t you know.

Many argued that his ideas were preposterous, and that they would never work in any of the universes and their expanse regions. But he quite liked his ideas.

Perhaps that is why he led Tom Riddle to Harry Potter.

More similar that different, more a variety between than a likeness, the two boys were as compatible as tea and sugar, but also as rock and marmalade.

And, in all his years of life, did Albus Dumbledore love a good gambling game. Which one would it be? Mortal enemies? Or foes turned friends?

One of his mad – not crazy ideas – some may say, yes. But not really, once you think about it.

In one scenario, Tom and Harry become friends, and they gain a good ally against Voldemort – one who knows his innermost secrets.

In the other, they repel, and he is able to leech as much information out of Tom as he can before feeding the boy to the dementors.

Albus Dumbledore swept the corners of Hogwarts castle, smiling slightly to himself in a way which was not out of place, the lines that etched his mouth settling into themselves in familiarity as he pondered his spectacularly mad plan.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Please leave comments!!! I'm more likely to continue with encouragement!!! I'm a slut for human engagement!!!

_“Writing a diary is tough around here,_

_Boring as hell, sorry ma.”_

Undignified shouts and swears erupted from Harry’s mouth as he stormed after Hermione, the red and gold mirage of the common room pounding his head with comfort and familiarity, desperate to save himself from the act he was about to commit – a mistake, no doubt, and one that would become apparent later.

Harry’s head spun with webs of lies, deception, deceit, as he looked on with pointed glares to his bushy-haired woe, her fingers raking through her locks in a wretched attempt to tame whatever thoughts currently stampeded through her brilliant mind. Her toes tapped against her shoe, and the uncharacteristically quiet nature of the surrounding room seemed to emphasise the noise; a countdown.

“What the hell, Hermione?” He shouted, storming closer to his friend, close enough to see the expectant scorn on her face and the irritated anger that had quickly overtaken it.

“ _What_ , Harry. What have I done wrong?”

Harry fumed, his hands curling into fists, forgetting the wand that lay heavy in his pocket, and brought them down with barely restrained rage to the sides of his trousers, the pulled and worn fabric tickling his knuckles.

“You, you,” Harry sputtered, the fury he felt unable to be translated properly into words, “you _consorted with the enemy!”_

Hermione laughed, actually laughed, a cold and putrid sound of exasperation, irate air blowing through her flared nostrils as her eyes berated the disobedient child standing in front of her.

“Consorting with the enemy? What is it with you boys, and your mislead fantasies of black and white lives, of good and evil? I’m trying to save us Harry!”

“Save us?” Harry snorted, red ringing in his head and flashing across his eyes, alarm bells hitting the confines of his bloated skull.

Hermione bristled, hair ballooning, “yes, save us! It may not have occurred to you Harry, but generally, deliberately antagonising a known murderer isn’t always the best idea! I’m trying to make sure that he doesn’t turn on us!”

“Are you sure? Because to me it looked like you just wanted to get in his pa- “

Noise resounded throughout the room, a slap so hard and so emotional that heads turned, portraits stared, even the dead armadillo on the mantel piece stirred.

“How… _dare_ you Harry Potter _,”_ Hermione shouted, her breath leaving her body before sound even appeared, hands brushing through her hair in annoyance and frustration, “how _dare_ you insinuate that I’m attracted to _that.”_

“Sorry,” he mumbled, abashed expression quickly remedied as she looked back, face lighter and more understanding of his issue, at least, he thought.

But knowing Hermione, it probably wouldn’t be.

“Look, Harry, I’- I’m _scared_. We all are. He’s here, he’s part of the school and he knows about the Order and… and who knows what he’ll do! But a scorned and lonely Riddle is so, _so_ much worse than a comforted one. I’m trying to save us Harry, please, _please._ ”

Salt resonated through the air, impossibly potent, it’s watery prison dripping in lines of torment and anguish down Hermione’s face, her hands covering the mess and her eyes squinted with pain.

“Hey,” Harry whispered, bringing her close to him, her heaving and shaking form curled against his side as she wept, “hey Hermione, I understand.”

“P-please Harry, just try. _Please._ You’re supposed to be similar, who knows? You might actually end up liking him.”

Harry snorted.

“Or at least pretend,” Hermione sniffled, looking up at him through clouded eyes, intelligence wringing the water from her ducts as she straightened herself from him, shifting on her feet as she regained her balance.

“Okay, okay. I’ll try.”

She smiled.

“Thank you.”

xXx

 

Don’t get him wrong, he _knew_ he shouldn’t have done that. But it was just too damn tempting.

Tom’s hands wrung his hair like a towel, strands of meticulously placed brown raked up into a chaotic tundra. His Ravenclaw tie sat mocking him from his bed, the four-poster standing tall and wrong over his head.

Tom Riddle was a master of discipline, of composure, of deception. It seemed, that Thomas Granger was none of those things.

He couldn’t help it of course. Pesky human emotions always got in the way, didn’t they?

Flashes of blond and a biting tongue caused Tom to clench his hands, curling around his wand: unfamiliar, wrong. It wasn’t his.

What was he doing? Here, in this castle, in this _time_?

The clock ticked away on the wall, the only evidence of the muggle world and of the evolution of the years that he could see. But, out there, there was so much more that he didn’t know. And he hated not knowing, despised it even.

Whereas 50 years ago, Tom Riddle’s meticulously polished hair and alabaster face had been the pinnacle of attraction – the girls had fallen for him, every single one of them, and even without physical manipulation he was still able to get to the teachers. Sometimes, with the boys, it had been a little bit of both.

Now? Thomas Granger was walking around with a smattering of freckles dusted on his cheeks, glasses upon his nose and hair laid in waves across his forehead, and people looked at him – oh yes, they did – but they weren’t nearly as enthralled as they should have been.

From Heir of Slytherin to Mudblood. How the mighty had fallen.

But Tom _refused_. This was not how he would go, when in fact, he was not planning to ‘go’ at all.

This was a minor setback, that’s it. A chance to gage his mistakes, and to stop himself becoming that barmy, utterly idiotic, chauvinistic villain that he was apparently ‘destined’ to turn into.

In fact, being the talented individual that he was, he was sure that he could turn this to a positive.

Not only was the present world more inclusive of Mudbloods, but it also had its fair share of Blood Purists still lingering in the shadows, waiting for a good time to squash the other side.

And, luckily for Tom, he could appeal to both.

Not as Lord Voldemort, for that name was dead to him, and not as Tom Riddle, who was buried deep in the past and forgotten by many who cowered under his guise.

Thomas Granger – not a Mudblood, but a Halfblood, whose father was a relation to the great Slytherin, a trait and an honour that he had passed on to his grateful son.

Yes, that sounded as if it could work.

Tom’s head cleared almost instantaneously as he was faced with blonde – the second time that day he had been thrown off his feet – and was regarded by those large grey eyes.

“Luna Lovegood,” Tom greeted, extending a hand. The Lovegoods were a distant relative of the Blacks – or maybe the Malfoys, one never knows with the constant inbreeding - and so a respectable pureblood family.

Although, by the looks of things, they’d fallen from grace since he was last here.

“Tom Riddle,” the girl replied, her eyes widening to accommodate the moons that swirled within them, her mouth set straight in its certainty.

Tom smiled his classical smile, “Dearest girl, I would recommend you quiet yourself, or would you like the whole of your esteemed house to gleam my true identity?”

“Oh it’s okay, no one knows who you are anyway.”

Tom’s smile wavered, but the outrage was shaken just as quickly.

“What do you want?” He asked, biting his cheek to refrain from spitting the words at her, “I suppose you didn’t come here just to insult me?”

“No, not at all,” Lovegood clarified, twirling a blond strand between her paint-covered fingers, “why would anyone insult you?

“Anyway,” the girl continued, jutting her legs out, the baggy material that shrouded them flying with her with a ruffled noise, “I only came here to see if you wanted dinner? Or if you were going hungry tonight? Daddy says that fasting is only good if you have a drive you know, and otherwise it’s just self-torture.”

“Well I’m far from a masochist,” Tom said, slipping his tie around his neck and pulling the end close to his neck, “and I would love to eat.”

He held out his arm to her, “My lady?”

She regarded him with unmoving eyes, “no I think not.”

And with that she left, twirled on the spot and glided away with the grace of a creature that her dreadful magazine had spoken of often – one Tom could not hope nor be bothered to recall – and slipped from the door, humming a song reminiscent of a funeral march as she went.

-

-

-

“Hermione, why is _he_ here?”

“I don’t know Ronald, I’m not his babysitter, am I?”

“Hello,” Tom Riddle greeted, sitting down next to his ‘cousin’ with a nonchalant smile on his otherwise blasé expression, completely disregarding the horrified expressions that painted everybody that surrounded him – spare Seamus and Dean, who were too busy engulfed in conversation (and each other) to notice the intruder in their midst.

“You can’t sit here,” Hermione reminded, the subtle snap to her voice a reminder of hers and Harry’s conversation earlier, “you’re a Ravenclaw.”

“Au contraire, dearest cousin, it doesn’t say in _any_ of the 2700 odd pages of ‘ _Hogwarts: A History’_ that there is a rule against inter-house mingling, only that societal conventions within this lovely school of ours dictate that we should sit at separate tables, lest we be cast out and branded as a deserter.”

He shrugged. “Besides, I wanted to see you. We hardly _ever_ see each other nowadays, what with school and all that.”

Harry could have punched him, hand on heart, but with the bravery and comradery worthy of an Order of Merlin, First Class, he managed to refrain from the temptation.

“I guess so,” Hermione said through barely gritted teeth, they twitch in her eye visible to everyone that knew her, “please, make yourself at home.”

Harry stabbed his potatoes with gusto and – controlled – anger, shoving them into his mouth with the speed and force of his very own broomstick. He made no attempt to make eye contact with the person that had shifted opposite him, thank you very much, not even a sly glance from the corner of his eye.

If he _had_ looked however, Harry would have told you that Tom Riddle looked particularly pleased with himself, smiling with faux interest as he made conversation with a weedy fourth year, the young girl twirling her hair and giggling like a cliché.

He would have also told you about the sirens that flashed in his head when the predator turned his way.

“I admit,” Riddle said, raising his hands, “I may have had alternative reasons for sitting with you.”

“What a surprise,” Ginny muttered, and Harry had to work to hide a snort.

Although looking back on it, he should have laughed so hard that he spat in that insolent face.

“My beloved cousin had told me _so_ much about the great Harry Potter before I came here, and I have to admit being slightly in awe,” Riddle explained, making sure to flash his lies across the whole midsection of the table.

“It’s not everyday you meet The Boy Who Lived, is it?”

Harry swore he felt a spark of magic fly between their eyes, a flicker of anger and daring that was sent his way, resonating through the jagged lines that marred his forehead.

“I guess it’s not,” Harry muttered, clenching his fork in his hand with the strength of ten-thousand men, although it stayed quite clearly in shape, not bending with his obvious annoyance and fury.

“So tell me Harry, how did it feel meeting Voldemort in that graveyard?”

A ringlet of gasps rang down the table – ‘he did that on purpose’, Harry fumed – yet the Chosen One remained locked in a battle with his foe.

“You want to know how it felt, Tom?” Harry spat, “it felt like I was finally face to face with someone who had wronged me, _greatly_ , and it felt like I had a chance to make everyone he _ever_ hurt proud. It felt _good_ to throw those spells at him.”

Harry was standing now, he realised, but he hardly cared. He hardly cared that the entire hall was staring in interest at him.

He hardly cared that Riddle looked so triumphant. Like he got exactly what he wanted.

“It must have been scary,” the fourth-year girl beside Riddle swooned, almost clutching the monster’s arm with badly controlled lust. She wasn’t even looking at Harry, not that he cared, but he almost longed to see her face if she knew who her new crush actually was.

“Not really,” Harry shrugged, sitting down and facing Riddle with a smile as sickly as the other boy’s own, “it wasn’t scary at all.”

“Oh? Pray tell.” Riddle’s face was in his hands, the fingers interlocked together into a hammock for his chin, his eyes slitted into purring smiles.

“You’d think that Voldemort would be this scary, menacing, powerful wizard – and he is. But underneath?”

Harry looked Lord Voldemort straight on.

“He’s just a pathetic orphan with daddy issues.”


	12. Chapter 12

The soft chime of Dumbledore’s glass should not – by all accounts – have been audible over the mindless chatter of the students but, as if by magic, it was.

And, as if by magic, all of the _teenagers_ in the hall immediately stopped talking and turned to listen to his wonderful and wise words.

It’s common sense that Tom should detest Albus Dumbledore. And, because he’s not stupid, he does. The man represents power, however the morals he deems _so_ important seem to place him higher than all other great wizards and witches, even though the Headmaster dabbled _himself_ in the dark arts on more than one occasion.

The boundaries of light and dark that Dumbledore himself represents – he’s the wall, in fact – are crippling, debilitating. It’s like cutting magic off at the knees and telling it to fetch a ball. There is no light and dark, no good no evil. You can blind someone with a _lumos,_ you can drown someone with an _aguamenti_. Hell, you can bludgeon someone with a hammer without using any magic at all.

The whole ‘rights and wrongs’ charade that the entirety of the teaching board seem to endorse is absolutely absurd, and – because there is no viable reason as to why there should be these restrictions – it’s entirely possible that the whole law is there just for control.

No, not possible. _Definite._

Tom sat at the Gryffindor table, still, with his face buried in the last sprig of broccoli that sat alone there, deliberately averting his face from that of Dumbledore’s, whose old throat was clearing itself as he prepared to speak his mighty words.

“As many of you know, and anticipate, All Hallows Eve will be arriving next week, a holiday that has been celebrated by magic folk since the days of the witch burnings. We as a school feel that we have not endorsed this great tradition enough, and propose that next Thursday, not only will all lessons be cancelled, but there will be a Hallowed Ball for all to attend.”

That got the students whispering to one another, and soon words were spewing like spit from the mouths of every child, their expectancies and their hopes gushing from their mouths in a desperate plea to get them all out before Dumbledore started to speak again. However, it was the lips of Minerva McGonagall that spoke first.

“It is themed around the ghoulish, of course, and we may even entertain the macabre, however every student must attend with a date. This is not a party nor a childish fest, but a celebration of one of our oldest rituals, and so must be treated with respect and with dignity, something some of you truly lack.”

Balls, in themselves, were not only a social event, but a political move. Compliment the right person, dance with the right influential figure, and you might find your chess piece moved further along the board.

However for Tom, the board was paved with obstacles – such as the idiocy that seemed to exude from his counterpart, and the terrorism that he seemed to partake in. Fighting those assumptions were going to be difficult, he concluded, but thankfully, there were only a select few students at Hogwarts that actually knew of his true identity.

However, all the others thought he was a mudblood, and so any truly prominent people that he may have a chance of persuading to his side were now redundant, as many were pure-blooded, and rightfully proud of the fact.

There was another powerful figure that graced the school, however, albeit even more difficult to sway. Harry Potter, talking to Ron Weasley, sat across from him, a potato hanging limply from his fork – drowned in gravy and various sauces.

Though inviting Harry Potter was a bit ambitious, even for Tom Riddle, he felt that he was on the right track. Girls swooned to the Chosen One like bees to a hive and lived off his praise for sustenance as a dying man would his medicine. Though, it seemed that the great Potter was not too interested in his flock of fans, who were consistently ignored and politely declined in their advances.

The only ones who he ever let close were the choice few that knew of Tom’s guise and knew of his beginnings and of the tries that he was put through, and perhaps, that he put others through.

Tom regarded the table, looking about the various exciting faces and slumped looks, and considered his limited options.

Ginny Weasley was ruled out immediately. Fiery, temperamental and not to mention the grievance that she seemed to have with him… no, she wouldn’t do.

In fact, any of the Weasleys could be considered as the same.

Harry Potter himself was not only a risky move, but one he would not be able to complete without the assistance of a potion and a few spells. Harry hated him, and – Tom had to admit – had reasonable justification to do so. 

Hermione Granger… would have been a great choice, if not for the fact that she was his relative in this terrible existence. He could of course choose her in a platonic sense, but he didn’t particularly wish to be regarded as the sorrowful boy who took his cousin to the dance.

Perhaps Tom had to look further than the Gryffindors. Beyond the Hufflepuffs, yet masking the Slytherins, there sat a girl – hair blonde and face soft with hidden intuition and unlocked wisdom. She was smart – though weird – however as far as he knew, did not excel in her academics, rather… drifted.

Luna Lovegood was a drifter, one of immense knowledge and sway.

She was perfect, well, if he could just tame her.

-

-

-

“So are you going to ask Hermione, or not?” Harry teased, throwing a pillow at his best friend, whose red face blended with the backdrop as a chameleon would when he tried to hide.

“Shuddup Harry,” Ron grumbled, pulling the pillow down and violently throwing it back to its rightful place on the bed opposite.

“What about you?”

“What about me?” Harry questioned, although, it was less of a question and more of a challenge, his inner lion raring to be let out and defend itself.

“Who’re you fancying to go to the ball with?” Seamus shouted from the thrall of his bed, still entangled in sheets and legs with Dean, whose eyes were rolling in humour.

Two years ago, Harry had been forced into an uncomfortable night with Parvati Patil – not uncomfortable due to her, but uncomfortable as in… well, bad. If Harry would have had it his way, then he would’ve gone with no one.

Although… at the time Cho Chang had seemed like a charming choice, although after the events of last year….

Well, Harry was sure she was suited to someone else.

But now? Two years further into his maturity and Harry was still as clueless as he was before.

“Any chance you’d let me stay back from the ball?” Harry hazarded, although the laughing faces of his roommates seemed to disregard his plea.

Fake tears wiped from his cheek in a display of faux amusement, juxtaposed by the immediate change back into a stoic state of seriousness.

“Not a chance in hell.”

Harry groaned, falling back into the feathery pillows and pulling it down onto his face, eyes scrunched into denial and regret.

-

-

-

“Miss Lovegood,” a voice interrupted from behind the aloof girl, stopping the track of dreams that her head wove, planting all the wonders of the great world outside of Hogwarts school in one spot as the perpetrator grew closer and closer.

Tom Riddle, in all his overrated and fake glory, stood in front of her, tall and proud and so utterly broken.

Luna was good at reading people, seeing things – something that people often picked up on, although in the wrong way – and was constantly analysing her peers every second of every day. The bruises, the scars, the broken promises that painted their wrists red; Luna knew it all. And she tried to help, she truly did.

But in the case of Tom Riddle, she wasn’t sure that there was much left to salvage, at least, enough to rebuild the pieces from.

His wavy hair crashed over his forehead in a pristinely manicured mess, his eyes were a jewel, sparkling and dead behind their forged and ersatz shine. His cheekbones rose upon the gaunt frame on which they sat, and his teeth bit at his gums until they bled as he smiled a crocodile’s grin.

But behind all of that, Luna was sure that he felt something. In fact, she was sure that he felt a lot.

“Hello Tom,” Luna smiled, pushing the thoughts to the side of her mind as she forced herself to stare at his forehead – not into the twisted turmoil behind his eyes, or at the propaganda that spewed from his mouth.

“Miss Lovegood – Luna – I was wondering if we could talk? Privately, if preferable,” he purred, boyish charm seeping into his lies like a leaky faucet – he couldn’t control it, Luna mused, and stored the information into her endless bank for future reference.

The masochistic part of her brain that was present in every person pleaded for conversation, and curiosity screamed to be satisfied.

However, privately? She may be intuitive, but she wasn’t suicidal.

“We could talk here,” Luna suggested, not suggesting anything really, but demanding in a passive play for power that was unbefitting of her – truly! Although, one may argue that it was warranted in this situation.

The snake behind Tom’s eyes studied her, no doubt weighing the possibilities and counting out the many and infinite ways that this encounter could go wrong – or perhaps, in partnership with his narcissism, he was debating the ways that it could go right.

“As you wish,” he decided, and left Luna momentarily just long enough that she could wonder about his words and derive hidden meaning from every syllable.

“As you know, I’m… new here, and although there are people here who are friendly and charming, there are a very limited selection of people who _actually_ know who I am. This ball, well it would be foolish for me not to go. And, personally? I’d like to spend the night not having to pretend.”

Oh, so he was asking her to the Hallowed Ball.

How curious. And how exhilaratingly expected. Luna giggled.

“I would love to go. I never really get invited to anything,” she pondered, thinking back to the Ravenclaw soirees in which she would be exiled to her room. She went freely, of course, and preferred it that way, but nonetheless; a friend was something scarcely extended as an option to her.

It just got predictable is all, being expatriated.

“Perfect. I’ll send you the theme?” Tom queried, already walking away.

“No, no thank you.”

His head turned with speed like lighting, a force of electrical energy that was intended to shake her to her core.

But, unbeknownst to him, she was made of wood. And he had no effect on her.

“E-Excuse me?” He laughed, a cold and surprised sound that escaped him before his guise could regain its composure.

“I would quite like to go as Hades and Persephone,” Luna contemplated, much to herself, “I do think that Hades was an underrated God, and Persephone even more so.”

“So, Hades and Persephone then?”

“Yes,” Luna smiled, “I think you’d look quite good in flowers.”

His face was slack with shock, and with a kick of her heels and a small smile, Luna Lovegood bounced down the school corridor, headed in charmed contemplation towards Potions.

-

-

-

The school was abuzz with excitement as students of all ages chatted in the corridors over the bubbling anticipation of the coming ball. Girls, their demeanour more controlled and innocent, giggled incessantly and swatted each other’s arms as they blushed from their friends vaguely suggestive comments.

The boys on the other hand… where less so controlled. Strutting through the corridors, backs arched as they strove to look under various skirts, faces constantly split into a sickening smirk that indicated their minds were _far_ elsewhere. Materialistic and distantly hedonistic, the young men let their imaginations run wild, not trapped by the strict regulations surrounding the ball, but envisioning a night of trailing hands and heavy breaths.

The Ravenclaw common room was no exception, although one would think that the ‘wise’ house would show a bit more restraint. Out of the way of other prying eyes, girls were much louder in their lust, and boys had slinked off to their dorms to act out their fantasies with wandering hands and self-indulgence. A couple of girls – and a fair few boys – let their eyes wander over Tom, his body curled in an armchair and a book on his lap – hardly the most provocative pose, but each to their own.

Once, but only once, Tom had caught the airy figure of Luna Lovegood drift softly through the common room, her feet moving in quick succession as books caught her steps, acting as a staircase as she moved upwards to the towering stalls of dreams and lands.

Only once, but enough to cause the boy to flush – not with indecent thoughts, but with frustration. His game, an intricate web spun so wide that many flies were entrapped without even knowing it, was failing – she knew his plan, and he knew it. Her intelligence was vastly larger than any would have thought, shrouded by her belief in the fantastical and her eccentric personality.

Tom respected her, maybe even liked her, and admired her perseverance in keeping up with his plights and plans. She couldn’t care less, and had no intimate hopes regarding Tom – that he knew of, however unlikely considering her eyes spelled intrigue rather than desire.

She was more than a pawn in his maze now. Maybe a knight – slightly strange moves however entirely predictable.

Although quite annoying, he now remembered. His dark hair fell over his face in a mess of waves, and his pale skin caused it to act as a brazen beacon to any who looked over. The white and black simplicity of his aesthetic was complimented greatly by dark colours – black, navy, forest green. Not the atrocity that was bright flowers.

Tom was sure as well that patterns would accentuate the lack of torso he sported, his skinny body usually hidden by reams of robes or filled out by voided black. He had never been particularly broad, although he wasn’t so thin as to have no shape. There was just simply no muscle definition on his body, his physique represented only by the wiry muscles that wove his arms.

Not to mention the great juxtaposition the flowers would have on his personality. Hades, God of the Underworld and ruler of souls was definitely a more comfortable fit, however in order to nab a date that fit his maze of puzzles, he was having to give up all dreams of grandeur and settle for a second-rate character.

Although… Persephone was certainly terrifying in her own right. The harsh and discordant pickings of spring had caused many a famine and the warming air hid the genocide that took place all over the world.

Genocide was appropriate he guessed, considering his… future endeavours.

Surreptitiously, Tom pulled his wand from his pocket and admired the framework. Vines climbed the smooth wood, the handle ironing out into a concave flatness – perfect for grip. And yet? This wasn’t his wand.

His wand was white, hewn from a tree, curved ever so slightly from use and indented where the oils in his fingers had rubbed consistently over the years. His wand had performed wonders, terrors, and had been his only delight for many long years at Hogwarts.

But his wand had been snapped, taken off him as he lay unconscious in a hospital bed, unable to be used at the same time as it’s identical twin, whose luscious shape had been distorted with fury and ambition and malevolence.

This wand worked fine, and one might argue that it’s lack of resilience for the darker spells made it better, but Tom for one was tired of the restrictions and rules that suffocated him. If he squinted, he could glean the small red musk that surrounded the wand, a barrier against every spell he had ever loved, craved, and needed.

‘Dark’ magic had been Tom’s secret, his little getaway when things got too hard. A small _opugno_ and a _protego_ allowed him to watch birds flutter about, docile with nothing to attack.

Even his parseltongue abilities, though still remaining in the depths of his throat, were regarded as dark, however the happy hisses of slowworms as Tom let them coil around his hand was anything but.

A switch flicked instantaneously in Tom’s head.

The Chamber. His sanctuary.

The Headmaster would not be able to argue against it, since his beautiful Basilisk had been slain.

There was nothing in there that rendered Tom a threat.

At least, that Dumbledore knew.

Filled with intent and ambition, Tom rose from the chair, leaving his book open in haste as the portrait swung open for his departure.

**Author's Note:**

> I would really appreciate feedback!
> 
> Also, this story is not going to be completely canonical, so forewarning!!!


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